by David Wood
“How can you know for certain, sir?” Jarn asked. “That the hammer has never been found, I mean. No one knows what it looks like, right?”
“If it had been found, the world would know,” Landvik said. “That’s surely true, because there’s none like it. Now move. We must find them quickly!”
Chapter 51
Lindisfarne Castle
Crowley led the way into the castle’s “Ship Room” at the far end of the corridor. They were fast running out of places to search or hide. A large model of a Dutch ship hung from the ceiling above, presumably giving the room its name. The room itself was not unlike the hull of a ship turned upside down, the walls rising and curving in to meet high above in a slight point rather than a smooth arch. Deeply recessed windows let in wan light to either side, the floor a herringbone of red bricks, like most places throughout the castle.
Crowley looked about the room, thankfully empty of tourists. People seemed to be heading off, perhaps about to join a tour outside or something. It worked for them, allowing more freedom of movement, but they had little left to explore. And he was increasingly concerned about Rose’s state of mind. She was plagued by these flashes of memory. They had a physical impact on her, made her dizzy and uncertain on her feet. Whatever that bawbag Landvik had done to her, it seemed to have long-lasting effects.
“This room used to be the fort’s ammunition store,” Cameron said, reading from a small plaque by the door.
“What if we can’t get below from anywhere?” Rose said, her voice shaky. “What if this castle construction has blocked off anything that was here previously?”
Crowley frowned, shook his head. “It’s possible, but I don’t buy it. This place was built for defense, so wouldn’t you want an avenue of escape when under siege? Otherwise, your enemies could starve you out.”
“He’s right,” Cameron said. “Remember the only external access is the door we came through at the top of the path? No way is that the only way in and out. There must be others.”
Voices sounded from a short distance away and the three of them froze. They were male voices, the words unclear but the lilt of a Scandinavian language unmistakable.
“We’ll be trapped in here!” Rose whispered, eyes wide.
Cameron looked left and right. Some large brass plates were mounted on one wall, heavy-looking. He pointed. “We could hide on either side of the door and jump them. Brain them with those. But it’s three men with guns versus two with knives and brass dinnerware. Not great odds.”
Crowley couldn’t help but agree. This was a bad place to be cornered, not much room to move around, only a table and chairs, a few armchairs, nothing to afford real cover from flying bullets. He looked to the fireplace, thinking to arm himself with a stout iron poker or other implement. He frowned, looked closer.
One stone in the back of the hearth looked out of place, darker and coarser than the others. It made him think of volcanic stone. Heart racing, hoping for a break, just one small piece of luck, he gave the stone a shove with his fist. It shifted a little, but not much.
“They’re coming closer!” Rose’s whisper had an edge of panic to it.
Refusing to be beaten, certain there was something up with this brick, and losing all other patience besides, Crowley slammed his booted heel into the dark square of stone with all his might.
A muted clack echoed behind the hearth and the stone gave way. The sound reminded Crowley of a tumbler in a lock sliding into place. With a scrape of stone, the back of the fireplace slowly slid sideways, revealing a low, dark tunnel. He turned a grin back to the others and saw them both staring with mouths hanging open.
“Come on then!” he said. “No time to stand around gawping!”
The three fell to their hands and knees and crawled inside. Crowley, bringing up the rear, heard the voices as though they were almost on top of them. Shadows moved in the corridor outside the door to the ship room, voices urgent and talking over one another in frustration. Crowley spotted a small metal lever to one side of the gap. Hoping desperately it would work, he pulled it. The false back of the fireplace slid closed, plunging them into utter darkness.
“That,” Crowley said with relief, “ought to buy us some time. Now, let’s see what’s down here. And quickly, in case they figure out what I did.”
Chapter 52
Beneath Lindisfarne Castle
Crowley, Rose and Cameron all flicked on the flashlight apps on their phones. The small space behind the fireplace was cramped, but the passage led away from them, descending at a shallow decline. Crowley took the lead, on his knees and one hand, holding his light up with the other. They knew instinctively not to talk, not drag their shoes or make any other noise. If Landvik did discover the secret entrance, which Crowley assumed he would eventually, they didn’t want him to do so just yet by giving themselves away with noise.
As he traveled further, Rose behind him and Cameron coming last, the ceiling began to rise as the slope continued down. After about twenty meters he was able to stand, albeit hunched over so as not to bang his head on the rough rock.
He eventually came out into a small, low-ceilinged cave, hewn roughly from the rock. One side, low down, was smooth like maybe that had been natural, with the rest mined out by human hands. As Rose and Cameron arrived beside him, adding their lights to his, he saw several other passages leading away. The space was like a rocky hand, the tunnel they had crawled down being the wrist, with five dark fingers leading away, spread almost evenly apart. On the far right, the tunnel was only about a meter in diameter and their lights showed that it quickly narrowed to something even a small child would have trouble navigating. The other four passages were all big enough for a grown adult, though a couple would require crawling once more.
“We should split up,” Rose said. “There’s no telling how much time we have. If Landvik finds the secret door, we’re in trouble. At least if we find the hammer, we’ve got a bargaining chip.”
Crowley opened his mouth to reply when Rose gasped and staggered. He ran to her side, grabbed her arm. “You okay?”
She made a noise of anger, almost a feral growl, and hauled herself upright. “I’m fine. Honestly, thank you. These memory flashes are disorienting, but I won’t let them weaken me.”
Crowley grinned, impressed again with her strength. “So can your memories tell us which tunnel to take?”
She shook her head. “That’s what I just tried to do, to remember where Aella had been, but it’s too dizzying. We’ll just have to check, I think. Quickly. Separately.”
“Yes, okay then,” Crowley reluctantly agreed. He pointed to his left. “I’ll take to the one on this side. Rose, you want to take the other side?”
“Sure.”
Cameron held out a shining bowie knife. “Take this. Don’t be squeamish about using it if you have to.”
“I won’t. Thank you.” She hurried over to the passage beside the one too small for access, then paused. She flicked a look back over her shoulder and grinned. “Good luck!”
“You too. Scream if you need us!”
She nodded once and vanished into the tunnel’s dark mouth.
Crowley pointed to the remaining two passages in the center. “Take your pick.”
“I’ll take the left one first,” Cameron said. “Whoever’s out first can check the last one if necessary.”
Crowley grabbed his friend’s forearm, squeezed. “Good job. See you soon.”
Cameron returned the pressure on Crowley’s arm, then ducked away into the darkness. Crowley dropped to his hands and knees and scooted as quickly as he could along his tunnel. At intervals, it rose high enough that he could crouch and crab-walk along, but was otherwise narrow and featureless. His light quickly shone back to him from a dead end of rock.
“Nothing,” he muttered, shining his light around to be certain, then spotted an iron ring set in the ceiling. Surrounding the ring was a circle of stone, maybe a little over half a meter in diameter. He frow
ned. An old-fashioned kind of manhole? He put his phone on the floor, light shining up so he could see, and worked at the ring, trying to work the stone loose. He pulled out his knife, ran the blade point around the circular edge, then shook and pushed and pulled at the ring again, hoping he wasn’t about to bring the round slab of stone down on his head.
After some muscle and grunt, the stone shifted, turning in its seat and raining grit and dust down onto his face. Crowley blinked and coughed, but pushed upwards with all his strength. The stone tipped up and he put both hands beneath it and slid it sideways as cold, damp air rushed in.
He grabbed the edges and hauled himself up, his head rising inside a gloomy building. Watery daylight shone in through stone arches that looked out onto broad swathes of green, the cold ocean not a stone’s throw away.
He remembered Rose’s museum brain moment on their way up to the castle and realized he must be inside the old lime kilns. He seemed to have discovered the escape route he had postulated. He dropped back down into the passage, wondering if this was all some ridiculous wild goose chase. Could he honestly believe that such a thing as Thor’s mythical hammer really existed? And that they might find it here? But what other choice did he have right now than to continue as if it were?
He retraced his steps and soon emerged back into the central cave. The others were nowhere to be seen, everything quiet and still. It felt as though the cave itself were waiting for something. Only one passage left unexplored, assuming Rose and Cameron hadn’t found anything. It was the lowest and narrowest of them all and Crowley bit down on rising claustrophobia as he squeezed his bulk through the small opening and crawled forward.
Chapter 53
Beneath Lindisfarne Castle
Landvik emerged into a small cavern, Jarn on one side of him, Levi on the other. Several more tunnels were ranged out before them.
“Well, well,” Landvik said. “You really did find something of interest here, Jarn. You have an eagle eye.”
Jarn nodded his thanks. “You told us to look for anything out of the ordinary while we tried to find Rose Black and her friends. Besides, that scraping sound tipped me off. It must have been the secret door closing behind them.”
“Even so, you did better than myself or Levi. Well done. Now, we can assume that Rose Black and her friends are down here somewhere, and we can’t discount what they may have found should we run into them. So I want them alive. You find anyone, you bring them back to this spot and you call out for me, understand?”
Jarn and Levi both said simultaneously, “Yes, sir.”
Landvik pursed his lips. “Right, well let’s each choose a passage to explore. Let’s make this quick.”
Crowley had crawled for what felt like a couple of hundred meters, worried he was traveling down a stony throat which might swallow him, when the ceiling above him finally began to rise higher. He stood, moving cautiously further ahead. After another twenty or thirty meters, he stopped, crestfallen. Before him was a wall of rock. A dead end. He shined his light across it and saw that between the stones there seemed to be leaking sand. He frowned. This wasn’t solid rock, but stones stacked and mortared in. A long time ago, it would probably have appeared like nothing more than an actual rock face, the dead end he had first assumed it to be. But time had caused the mortar to crumble, the stones had settled a little. The whole thing had the appearance of a tired wall rather than a rock face once he paid enough attention.
Cautiously, Crowley put one hand against the higher rocks, and pushed. They shifted slightly. He pushed harder and a couple moved, slid against each other with hollow knocks. One tumbled free, falling into a space behind. With a smile, Crowley pushed harder, putting his back and shoulder into the effort. Once he had started the movement, the wall lost its integrity and tumbled to a pile at his feet. It still blocked the lower meter or so of the passage, but he could easily climb over it and get through the gap above. He moved on, the air drier and more still than it had been before. Or was he just imagining that?
After another several meters, the passage flowered out into a wider tunnel. He froze at the sight of figures moving around ahead of him.
Holding his breath, he smothered the light with his arm and stood motionless, ears straining. No sounds of movement, no shouts of challenge. As slowly as he could manage, Crowley took his knife from his pocket and then began to reveal a tiny portion of his light. Under its weak illumination, now that he was still, he realized he had seen not actual people, but life-sized carvings. He unveiled the light entirely, panned it back and forth.
Figures in all manner of friezes were carved into the rock walls of the widening passage in which he stood. He moved closer, recognizing many. He strained his brain to recall his history lessons on Norse mythology, trying to place the characters and settings. Winged Valkyrie ferrid the dead to Valhalla, wolves flanked the god Odin who stood with a raven on his outstretched arm. Beautiful Freya, on a mighty steed, rode through fields of corpses. Ice giants roamed, and there was Loki, causing mayhem. And finally Thor, his hammer held high, about to crash down on the world below him. The carvings were incredibly detailed, unlike anything Crowley had seen in his life before. He moved his light slowly, made the deep shadows flicker and shift as though the scenes before him were truly alive. He had found something incredible here.
He moved along further and the passageway ended with a small opening, a lower tunnel once more. Crowley sighed, fell back onto his hands and knees, and crawled along. It was only three or four meters before the cramped way opened into a small square room hewn from the rock. As Crowley lifted one arm to see more clearly, the light of his phone glinted on something metallic.
Chapter 54
Beneath Lindisfarne Castle
Rose’s tunnel had gone on for so long that she began to wonder if it would ever end. Admittedly, she was going cautiously and watching all around herself, so it probably wouldn’t seem nearly as far on the way back. But surely it had to go somewhere.
She did her best to ignore the rapid flashes of memory that repeatedly flickered past her vision. They were not only disorienting, but hard to decipher, confused and opaque. And while their frequency seemed to be enduring, their clarity faded with every passing minute. Perhaps the effects of Landvik’s ritual were finally wearing off completely.
She paused, listening. A sound, distant and roaring, worried at the rock somewhere ahead. She kept her light high, hoping her phone battery wouldn’t fail her. She was terrified of being lost in the complete darkness of underground. As she moved further forward, the sound resolved itself slightly and she realized she was hearing the sea. There were no great waves around Lindisfarne unless the weather was stormy, but she definitely heard water, and the soft rush of the ocean further out.
She came around a shallow bend and her light reflected back off a solid surface and she stopped, disappointed. The end of the tunnel had clearly been sealed up, rocks piled and jammed together. There was a vague outline of the original tunnel mouth that seemed to be the beginnings of an opening into a cave. Clever bastards, she thought to herself, imagining the builders of this place finding a sea cave far from the foot of Beblowe Crag. She could picture them digging the tunnel from the cave system in the crag itself, working their way along until they met the sea cave, thereby having an exit like Crowley had suggested. An escape if they were under siege, or a way to smuggle people and supplies into the castle from the water, with only a small cave to defend, or the tunnel itself if the cave were taken.
She smiled, shook her head. Interesting history, but useless to her now. There was nowhere here to hide a mystical hammer. She turned off her light for a moment, plunging herself into stygian blackness. She breathed deep against the nerves that immediately rippled through her. She would need to preserve her battery, in case they needed to explore further. Who knew how far the other tunnels might go? She knew for a fact that it was one single passageway back to the cave where they had split up, so she could walk carefully trailing
one hand on the wall for stability and get back with some of her battery preserved.
She took another deep breath, telling herself to be calm, then froze. She had heard something. No, not something. She knew exactly what it was. The scuff of a shoe on the rock floor. She knew instinctively that it wasn’t Crowley or Cameron. They knew she had come this way, they would call out her name or something, not creep along like that. A light danced around the shallow bend back the way she had come.
There had been a fissure in the rock beside the blocked-up cave entrance, a kind of fold as if the rock had been creased by some giant hand. Rose quickly, as quietly as she could, backed up, feeling behind her as she went. As the approaching light brightened, her hand fell into the gap and she pressed herself in.
The gap was narrow, but she forced her way. The leg of her jeans snagged on a sharp protuberance, but she drove herself against it, pushing deeper in, ignoring the cold rock against her flesh, the knife Cameron had given her gripped tightly in one hand. Her heart beat so hard it filled her ears, slammed against the inside of her chest. She drew breath as quietly as she could, but the rock closed her in, stopped her lungs from expanding. She fought against panic, trying not to hyperventilate.
The scuffing shoes came nearer, the light ridiculously bright now. Was she far enough in to be hidden from view?
Landvik appeared around the shallow bend, his face a mask of fury in the stark light from a small penlight torch. He grunted a sound of annoyance as his light splashed on the blocked dead end. He shined it around, looked up and down, and scanned the ceiling above. He muttered something in Norwegian that sounded almost certainly like a curse and turned, took a few steps back the way he had come.