by David Wood
“But what if they’ve already gotten there and are on their way back out.”
“They’d run into us, wouldn’t they?” Unless they made a wrong turn. “Fine, let’s check it out.”
They crept into the tunnel, each cupping a hand over their compass stone to permit only a minimum amount of light to come through. They moved forward like shadows, alert for any sound or sight that would alert them that someone– or something– approached.
And then Maddock heard it. It was a clicking sound, like a deer skittering across pavement. They froze, dousing their lights. Maddock’s heart pounded and he stood, nerves tingling, ready to draw his weapon and start shooting. The noise grew louder and then ceased. He caught a faint whiff of a musky, animal scent, and then the sound faded into the distance.
“What the hell was that?” Bones muttered.
“Maybe Adler really did see something.” Maddock set his jaw. Whatever it was hadn’t tried to mess with them. That was a good sign.
“Go a little farther?” Bones asked.
“A little.” Maddock glanced down at the compass stone on his skull, which was pointing back the way they had come. “Good thing this isn’t a talking GPS.”
“Make a U-turn now,” Bones mimicked. He looked like he was about to continue, but his features froze.
Footsteps were coming their way and moving fast. They covered their lights and drew their pistols. Up ahead, the bend in the passageway began to glow with a faint light that grew brighter as the sound of someone moving grew louder. Now Maddock could hear heavy breathing like a marathon runner at the end of a race. He tensed.
“Make sure Jade’s with him,” he whispered to Bones. If it was Issachar, they’d have to try to overcome him without killing him– at least until they found out what happened to Jade.
But it was not Issachar.
“Jade!” Maddock cried when she turned the corner.
Jade screamed and dropped the skull she was carrying. The bronze crown clanked when it hit the floor. She recovered her wits instantly.
“Maddock?” she breathed.
“And his better-looking amigo.” Bones uncovered his compass stone as Maddock rushed forward and clutched Jade in a tight embrace.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. Just banged up and worn out.” She pressed her cheek to his chest and he stroked her hair.
“Where’s Issachar?”
“He fell into a hole in the floor and got stuck. I took the skull and ran.” Her breath came in gasps. “Had to try and find a new way out. I’ve just been doing the opposite of what the stone told me to do.”
“You’re headed in the right direction, but it’s a long way back,” Bones said.
“I’m just glad you’re all right.” Maddock didn’t want to let her go.
“Maddock, there’s a branch of the Dominion in Germany.”
“I know. You can fill me in on the way out. Let’s go.” He took her hand and turned to lead her back up the tunnel and was surprised when she held him back.
“Are you kidding me?” She looked from Maddock to Bones and back to Maddock, a disgusted look on her face. “I travel across Germany, get kidnaped, all to solve a stupid mystery and you don’t want to see it through to the end?”
“Jade...”
“Don’t ‘Jade’ me. You two are here now. I’m safe. Let’s finish this.”
Maddock hesitated. Of course, he didn’t want to stop now.
“You do what you want,” Jade said. “Bones and I are going. Come on, Bones.” She brushed past Maddock and headed down the tunnel.
“You attract the stubbornest chicks, Maddock.” Bones clapped him on the shoulder. “We might as well go with her.”
Shaking his head, Maddock drew his gun and followed Jade.
As they went along, Jade recounted Issachar’s belief that he would find the Magi’s gift of myrrh and that it could resurrect the dead. Maddock remembered what Ulrich had told him about Heilig Herrschaft’s plan, and was about to fill her in when Jade came to a sudden stop. Right in front of her a deep hole barred their way.
“Good catch.” Maddock put a protective hand on her arm. “Wouldn’t want to step into that.”
“He was here.” She knelt and shone her light into the hole. “This is where Issachar was stuck. I’m sure of it.”
Maddock and Bones added their light to hers. All they could see was darkness.
“Nothing we can do about it now. We’ll just have to keep an eye out.” Maddock stood and hoisted Jade to her feet. Now he was even more alert, he took the lead as they moved deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels.
With each step, the compass stones seemed to shine brighter, and the tunnel filled with a bluish-white glow.
“I don’t think it’s the compass stones doing this,” Maddock said. The glow was coming from the end of the passageway. They turned the corner and stopped dead in their tracks.
Maddock looked at his friends and then at the sight that lay before them.
“I don’t believe it.”
Chapter 17
They stood on a ledge overlooking a yawing cavern so wide they could scarcely see the other side. Floating in midair down below them was a glowing blue-white orb. Its surface pulsed and sparkled, bathing the jagged rocks of the cavern in a pale glow. The light had an odd quality to it– though Maddock sensed an intensity to it, he could look on it without so much as squinting. And though the cavern was a comfortable temperature, the thing was obviously not giving off heat.
“What’s keeping it up in the air?” Bones asked.
Maddock shook his head. He had never seen anything like it. It seemed to be a self-contained ball of pure energy. “I want to know what fuels it. It can’t just burn perpetually, can it?”
“Guys, look at this.” Jade held up the skull she was carrying. The stone gleamed with light the exact color and quality of that which burned below. “It’s the same.”
“All along, these compass stones weren’t pointing to a pole.” Bones scrutinized his own Magi skull. “They were pointing to this place.”
“Jade, what’s the German word for light?” The pieces were falling together in Maddock’s mind.
“Licht,” she said, mesmerized by the pulsing ball of light.
“Remember what the dying priest said? ‘Ewige l...’ He wasn’t saying ‘eternal life,’ he was saying ‘eternal light.’ He meant this light.”
“Whoa.” Bones took a step back. “Like how we thought the stones were making their own light! If this is a source of perpetual light...” He looked at Maddock.
“A limitless supply of clean energy without the need for fuel. Unless we’re way off base.” He took a deep breath, trying to envision a nation harnessing such power. Even if it was not put to any sort of military use, it could give a country’s economy such a boost that it could re-allocate massive resources to its military. It would be a treasure far beyond the rumored gifts of the Magi.
Jade suddenly tugged at Maddock’s wrist. “Maddock, you remember the story Adler told about the star the Wise Men followed being hidden underground! Do you,” she swallowed and her voice became very small, “do you think this is the Star of Bethlehem?”
“Maybe. Or at least, it’s whatever is behind the story. It’s obviously not an actual star.” He chuckled. “Nothing like stating the obvious, huh?”
“I wonder...”
Jade did not get to complete her thought because they suddenly found themselves surrounded by men armed with spears and arrows tipped with blue stones that shone like the ball of light down below. They had crept up silently and taken up positions in a semicircle, leaving Maddock, Bones and Jade trapped between a pit with no visible bottom and a line of armed men.
Except they weren’t men.
Horns protruded from their long, shaggy brown hair, and though they appeared human, if overly muscular and hairy, from forehead to waist, they were definitely animal-like from the waist down. At the waist, their body hair grew thick an
d glossy, and coated their thick thighs and lean calves. Their legs, which bent backward, ended in dark, cleft hooves, like a...
“A goat,” Maddock whispered. “They’re satyrs.” His thoughts flashed to the pagan temple beneath the cathedral in Cologne. Satyrs were associated with Dionysus, or Bacchus, depending on your preferred mythology. A creature like this was the Krampus whom Adler had seen so many years ago.
One of the goat men cocked his head at the word ‘satyr,’ and nodded once. He pointed and Maddock realized he was indicating the pistol tucked inside his jacket pocket. Slowly, Maddock took it out and laid in on the ground; Bones did the same. The satyr gave another nod and came forward to collect them when a loud voice rang out in the cavern.
“Nobody move or the goat dies!” Issachar emerged from a nearby passageway. His left arm was wrapped around a satyr, holding it tight. In his right hand, he held a knife pressed to its throat.
They emerged into the light of the cavern and Issachar’s eyes fell on the glowing ball of energy. Unlike the others, he did not seem mesmerized or even impressed. Instead, his face contorted in rage.
“Where’s the myrrh?” he screamed.
The satyrs exchanged glances, their expressions so foreign to Maddock as to be unreadable.
“It’s not here, Issachar. You had it all wrong.”
“I wasn’t wrong.” There was a pleading tone to his voice. “The secret to eternal life...”
“Eternal light!” Maddock corrected. “Ewige licht, not ewige leben.”
The satyrs looked at him as if the German words were familiar. Maddock could have sworn one of them looked at Issachar with a scornful grin.
“There is a miracle here, but not the one you thought you would find.” Maddock took a step forward. “Let him go.”
“I don’t believe you. The Magi’s treasures are here.”
“The one treasure is here. The Star of Bethlehem, whatever it is, but you can’t take it with you. Do yourself a favor, give it up and run. You might even get away.” He took another step forward and the ring of satyrs parted to make room for him.
“But Lazarus... Jesus... how did they rise from the dead?”
“I don’t know.” Maddock shrugged. “Maybe it was a regular old miracle. Whatever it was, you won’t find the answer here.” He spoke the last slowly, as if to a dimwit. “Let him go.”
“What do you care about a goat?” Issachar’s eyes burned with hatred.
“I don’t care. I care about kicking your ass.” Maddock grinned. “Again.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Bones said.
Maddock’s grin split into a broad smile as rage boiled in Issachar’s eyes.
“Come on,” he goaded, “don’t you want to get me back for what happened at Zion? Be a man.”
Issachar roared like an enraged lion, but before he could make a move, the satyr he was holding raised a leg and kicked him in the shin with the force of a bucking bronco. Issachar’s roar turned to a shriek of pain as his shin snapped. In a flash, six satyrs were on him. They bore him up and carried him away, still screaming, into the darkness.
The satyr who had first approached Maddock turned and stared at him. They stood there, listening to Issachar’s cries fade away, and waited. There was an odd, almost expectant look in the satyr’s eyes, like he was waiting for something. Maddock thought for a moment, and then realized he was still holding the Magi skull.
He held it out in front of him like an offering and then laid it carefully on the ground. Bones and Jade followed suit, and they all backed to the edge of the cliff.
The satyr folded his arms, looked down at the skulls, then took a long look at each of them, and nodded. He motioned three others forward. Each drew a knife and approached the three people standing on the cliff edge.
“What do we do?” Bones whispered from the side of his mouth.
“I think we’re okay,” Maddock said. “If not...” He let the words hang in the air. If not, they’d have to fight the best they could.
The satyrs stopped when they reached the skulls. Each one of them used his knife to pry a compass stone from one of the crowns. One by one, they hurled the stones into the cavern.
They looked like little meteorites, shining like little balls of pure light as the pulsing light drew them in. When the job was done, they handed the skulls back to Maddock, Bones, and Jade.
The satyr whom Maddock had come to regard as the leader now approached them. One by one, he placed his hand over each person’s heart and made another of his little nods. When he was done, he pointed to the way out.
“I don’t think we can find our way back,” Maddock said.
The satyrs might not speak English, but they seemed to understand his doubtful tone. One of them moved to the mouth of the tunnel and beckoned for them to follow.
Their glowing spear heads showing the way, one satyr led and another followed them out through the maze of dark tunnels. The path they took was more direct than the way they had come, because it seemed in no time they were standing on a snow covered ridge looking down on the twinkling lights of Drekonhas. The sun had just bedded down for the night and, to the west, its last delicate glow coated the tips of the Alps in burnished gold.
They turned and waved to the Satyrs, who looked at them with grave expressions. Finally, one of them bobbed his head and, giving them what Maddock swore was a wistful look, drove his spear into the roof of the tunnel.
There was a flash of blue light, a sound like a grenade exploding, and the roof of the passage caved in. When the dust cleared, only a pile of rocks and rubble remained where the entrance had been.
“Is somebody there?” Angel’s voice cut through the night air and, a moment later, a flashlight appeared in the distance. Angel appeared, picking her way along the ridgeline to where Maddock and the others waited.
She crushed Maddock and Bones in a tight embrace, crying and cursing them in turn. She wasn’t so rough with Jade, about whom she was clearly worried.
“How did you get here?” Maddock asked.
“I told those douches in town,” she pointed down toward the lights, “what happened, but they wouldn’t even take a missing person’s report at first. Finally, the lady at the inn threw a fit, so they wrote it up, but they insisted the only way under the mountain was through these caverns. The old lady lent me her car and I followed the cops up here. They poked around for a while and then went home.” She breathed a deep sigh. “I’m just glad you’re all right. You jerks scared the crap out of me running off like that.”
“It’s all good.” Bones assured her. “We’re safe and sound, and I’ve got one hell of a story to tell you when we get back to the pub.”
“Well, you don’t have to buy me a gift,” she said. “You guys getting back safe is enough for me.”
“Good thing,” Bones said, “because I didn’t buy you jack!”
“Ass!” she punched him on the shoulder. “You’d better have gotten me something.” Laughing and arguing, they headed back across the ridge, with Maddock and Jade following behind.
Jade looked up at the starry night sky and smiled. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever think of the Christmas Star the same again.”
“Me neither,” Maddock agreed. He leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. “Merry Christmas, Jade.”
“Merry Christmas, Maddock.”
~The End~
BUCCANEER- A Dane Maddock Adventure
By David Wood
Prologue
January, 1698
It was a stormy day on the Arabian Sea. Dark clouds hung low on the horizon and an angry wind scoured the decks with salt spray. William Kidd stood on board the Adventure Galley, surveying his prize. The merchant vessel sailed under Armenian colors, but carried French passes guaranteeing its protection, and that made it fair game. They’d taken it with little resistance offered by its crew. If its cargo holds carried half the wealth he hoped, he would be a rich man.
“Captain, may I h
ave a word?”
He turned to see an ashen-face Joseph Palmer standing behind him, shifting his weight from side to side and looking about as if fearful of being overheard.
“What is it, Palmer?”
“We have a problem.” The sailor dropped his gaze, reluctant to continue.
“What is it? It can’t be the cargo. The ship was riding too low in the water for her to be empty.”
“No, Captain, it isn’t that. It’s the finest haul we’ve ever made. Gold and silver, silk and satin, and all sorts of fine things.”
Kidd tried not to let relief show on his face. It would not do to reveal that he’d had even the slightest doubt. Loyalty among his crew was tenuous at best, and the dogs would bite at the first show of weakness on his part.
“So, what is this problem?”
Palmer cleared his throat and looked up at the gray sky.
“It is not a French vessel.”
Cold fear trickled down Kidd’s spine. The man had to be mistaken.
“It is an Indian ship,” Palmer continued, “captained by an Englishman.”
“That cannot be. It is under French protection. French!”
“It’s the truth all the same.” Palmer shrugged. “The captain of their vessel, he wants to see you.”
“Then he may come and see me. I will show him all the proper courtesies.” His thoughts raced. He was a privateer, not a pirate, but, after this incident, it might not be seen that way back in England. Perhaps he could reach an arrangement with this captain. “Bring him aboard.”
“There’s a problem with that. We tried to reason with him, but he wouldn’t stop fighting. Finally, Bradinham stuck him in the gut. He’s in a bad way, and I don’t think he’ll last much longer. He says it’s important. He said he...” Palmer stopped and scratched at his chin whiskers. “What was the word? It was something like ignore.”
“Implore.”
“That’s the one.” Palmer’s expression brightened. “Shall I take you there?”