The Diamond Dragon (Kip Keene Book 4)

by Erik, Nicholas

  Linus felt along the misshapen edges, thinking. “Guess Prashant was telling the truth in his call.”

  “Seems so,” Carmen said. “We got a hike ahead of us.” She nodded over Linus’ shoulder. He glanced backwards, down the slope. It wasn’t a sheer cliff, but it didn’t look like easy going, either. “Get your crampons on.”

  Linus did as he was told, and a few minutes later the two were crunching across the snowy peaks. Aside from avoiding the occasional gaping chasm—and the whisper-thin air that barely sated his lungs—it went all right. But the altitude proved to be a problem.

  Fifteen minutes in, Linus collapsed into the snow face-first.

  “Wade!”

  “What? Is dinner ready?” Linus was generally aware of a tingling sensation in his cheeks, but his aching lungs blocked out any other pain. His eyelids batted frost away as he stared into the snowy black. He felt himself being turned over, the darkness replaced by Carmen’s concerned face.

  “Breathe.” He became aware of a plastic apparatus attached to his mouth. He sucked in, and it felt like the best drug he’d ever done. Instant relief flooded his entire body, and muscles that had no feeling seconds prior sprung to life.

  His face felt bitterly cold. His eyes refocused. The edges of a mask led to a small canister. He took another deep breath, a revitalizing wave washing over him.

  “Dramatic altitude changes can be hell,” Carmen said. “First time in an altitude tent, I thought I was gonna die.” She reached down and detached the mask from Linus’ face. Instantly he felt the difference. Living suddenly became a whole lot more difficult.

  He gave a plaintive moan of protest and grabbed weakly for the mask. She shook her head, reflective sky goggles projecting a cool kind of sympathy.

  “Save some for later.” Carmen bent over and offered Linus a hand. He struggled to his feet and brushed the snow from his gear. After a couple of wobbles, he managed to get moving again, albeit at a slower pace—with breaks.

  An almost full moon was visible overhead by the time they reached their destination. Carmen held up her hand in front of a rock face and nodded.

  “Yeah, this is it.”

  Linus looked around for distinguishing marks but found none. To him, this cluster of rocks was identical to all the others in the Himalayas. Crusted with ice and snow, mineral veins running through the few patches of exposed gray. But Carmen wasn’t going by sight.

  She was going by the GPS locator clutched in her gloved palm.

  “How do we get in?”

  “Let’s look around.”

  “You got the time?” Linus said.

  “Only a couple hours to go,” Carmen said. “Better move quick and pray for the best.”

  Linus looked around the bare plateau before the rock face, but found nothing of interest. Snow drifts and tracks, sure. But nothing hiding in plain sight. He shrugged and began walking, taking measured steps to avoid collapse. His lungs still begged for him to sit down, but there wasn’t much time left to help Keene and avoid disaster.

  Maybe even the UCD’s fancy plane wasn’t enough to save the world at this point.

  Then the GPS beeped twice to confirm that the destination had been reached.

  “Found it!” Carmen’s voice echoed like it was being run through a reverb-heavy microphone. Linus saw no trace of her. He followed her bootprints to a narrow pathway running alongside the rock face. His hands scraped along the icy walls to steady his feet.

  Linus was thankful for the crampons. Without them, he had a feeling that he’d go tumbling off the ridge, thirty or forty feet below. His hand slid along the ice, and suddenly he felt an empty space. Linus gave a sideways glance of caution to make sure he wasn’t about to waltz off the edge.

  Instead, he saw shadows flickering off walls. A cave.

  He slid into the small opening.

  “Not bad, huh?” The voluminous ceiling gave the cave a cathedral like quality. While the entrance was small, the inside quickly widened. Marks on the walls and rusted torch holders indicated that this place was a man-made job.

  Carmen swept a light from her phone’s flash around the room, making shadows dance.

  “Someone did a hell of a lot of work here, Carm,” Linus said. “This must be it.”

  He walked stiffly over to the wall and sat down. Every muscle in his body wanted to shut down. This wasn’t his domain, coming out in the field. He was the guy who sat at his laptop, guided things from afar. Tech wizard.

  Linus removed the backpack, patting the field-ready computer contained within one of its large pockets. Now he was the field tech wizard. Somehow, he didn’t really like this new job. It was like being a medic. You didn’t get a gun, but the gig still afforded far too many opportunities to get shot at.

  Or you got a gun, but had no idea how to use it correctly.

  Seemed unfair, in the scheme of things.

  Carmen came over to kneel down next to him. “It’s sealed up.”

  Linus gnawed on a piece of stiff beef jerky. “The distress call said it was still open.”

  “There’s Latin written above the entrance. Those who pass will perish.”

  “But there is an entrance.”

  “Caved in, yeah,” Carmen said. “My money’s on the Romans.” She took a stick of beef jerky and chewed on it. With the goggles on, it was tricky to read her mind. But the way her lips were turned, even Linus could tell this setback was hitting her hard. The lonely wind whistled outside the cave’s narrow opening. The phone’s light cast an ethereal glow over the walls.

  Linus played with the jerky and considered their predicament. The distress call wouldn’t lead them directly to an entrance closed thousands of years before. That made little sense. At the same time, there had to be something special about these particular coordinates.

  There were only two places on Earth with the correct electromagnetic fields to reach Shambhala. Tillus and this cave. Tillus had two portals. The same had to be true here.

  Linus snagged the phone from the ground and tilted the light skyward. The flash reached only about ten feet into the air before being devoured by blackness. But Carmen had checked everywhere at ground level.

  The only way left was up.

  “Get your climbing gear out,” Linus said.

  “You’re in charge now, huh?”

  “Clock’s ticking,” Linus said. He watched as Carmen geared up. “I’ll push you.” The ceiling narrowed about eight feet above into a conical shape that rose an unknown distance. It looked like there were some good handholds. Down here, the rock was sanded smooth.

  Carmen leapt towards Linus and vaulted off his outstretched palms. She soared through the air and latched on to the ceiling, swinging her legs towards the wall. With one hand still hanging, she shoved a piton into the rock and then hammered it in.

  After a minute, she was anchored.

  “Nice job,” Linus said. He watched as she made the ascent. She put in a new anchor at the edge of the light, then she disappeared.

  Five minutes later, a rope came shooting out of the darkness. “Attach this to your harness and I’ll pull you up to get started.”

  Linus did as he was told and found himself hovering above the ground, swinging towards the first anchor. He caught the wall. The cracks in the rock were surprisingly generous, almost as if someone had created the handholds for climbing.

  This made Linus hopeful that his two portal theory was correct. He scrambled upwards and soon found himself at the top, where Carmen was nestled inside a small tunnel a little larger than a vent. A dim penlight shone in her hand.

  “You’re better than I expected,” Carmen said.

  “Climbing wall birthday parties were the thing during middle school,” Linus said.

  “Let’s go.” Without enough room to turn around, Carmen backed up and disappeared into the small tunnel. Linus hoisted himself inside, unhooked the rope, and followed. Moving on his belly was slow, but the tightness didn’t bother him. There was enough ro
om to lift his head about six inches. He pressed forward, following the thin glow of a pen light.

  Then he heard the scream.

  “Carm!” He scrambled forward, the rough ground tearing at his park. The screaming cut off, like a forty-five being removed from a turntable. Linus tried to go faster, but the narrow space prevented him from doing so.

  Then he was screaming, freefalling into nothingness.

  25 | The Truth

  “Do you understand why I insisted upon this very location for my estate?” Cladius Maximus said, leading the way through the gilded halls. He dipped his broad shoulders through a doorway. “I don’t suppose so.”

  “Because you’re a greedy coward,” Alessia said.

  “That is the resistance’s line,” Cladius said. “Rather cliché.”

  “All clichés start as truth.”

  “Very well put,” Cladius said. He unlocked a towering cherry door, swinging the massive hunk of wood open to reveal a set of spiral stairs. He began descending the steps. “Because the prophecy is a lie. And this will be the only way out once tonight is through.”

  Alessia felt her stomach churn. “You’re the liar.”

  “Your father said the same thing. I do hope you’ll be more cooperative than he was.”

  Alessia didn’t dare drag her feet, for fear of what Cladius would do if she rebelled.

  A great blast rocked the massive estate, flinging her against the side of the room. Her vision went fuzzy. A euphoric cheer—or maybe something more guttural and primal—surged through the air outside. Flames lapped at the structure. She felt arms beneath her shoulders, saw the face of a rebel in between lapses in consciousness.

  Heard it.

  Or maybe it was just a dream.

  Cladius Maximus, screaming from down below, caught on the stairs, “No, you fools, you don’t understand what I’m trying to do,” before being overrun by a mob that tore him limb from limb.

  Was it a dream?

  The smoke, so much smoke in her nostrils and in her eyes, turning her blonde hair an ashy shade of dirty yellow, as she was hurried out of the estate, right before the entire structure went up in flames.

  A noise like a cadre of crickets—or no, like a hawk’s wings beating through the air, powerful, constant, a big black bird with a spinning wheel on the top. Being placed inside, strapped to the floor, then watching as the valley disappeared.

  “Flight,” Alessia said.

  “Yes,” Prashant said—it was Prashant, her beloved, that was who it was—reaching down to pat her cheek. But his smile, it wasn’t kind, nor was it unkind. What was it? Her head hurt. Better to sleep.

  “Ground is small.”

  “It is,” Prashant said. “And now you will fulfill your destiny.”

  Alessia closed her eyes as the metal bird rose further into the thin air. She vaguely remembered being lifted again, footsteps landing on what sounded like ice. Pickaxes clinking against the ground, the smell of fire torching the snow.

  “We have arrived,” she heard her beloved say, in a reverential tone, “it is time for the girl to save our world.”

  Your world is my world, she thought.

  But then, it was all a dream.

  Otherwise, nothing made sense.

  26 | Rabbit Holes

  Linus let out a small squeak and Carmen socked him in the face. Lightly, but it still stung in the freezing cold. He glared at her through his reflective ski goggles. But she was right. No sound was far better than being discovered.

  Things were tight enough in this Diamond Dragon temple as it was. Figures that the one portal they found would drop them directly into the middle of the fray. They’d barely gotten out of the way before the two black-armored guards had rushed past.

  “That a chopper?” Linus whispered.

  Carmen nodded. She stripped the ski goggles from her face and directed her gaze outwards. Linus followed the look, but didn’t understand the directive.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Wait.” Footsteps and the sound of someone chipping away at the roof. “They’re coming in from the top.”

  “I thought you wanted me to do something.”

  “I do. I want you to wait.”

  They’d heard the whole thing, jammed into this tiny crevice on the temple’s second floor. Strike darting across the walkway. Keene falling behind when the pair came under siege.

  Him falling. Linus gulped, unwilling to admit that Keene was probably dead. If Linus could, he would’ve yelled no or given himself a pep talk. But that was impossible when right around the corner—no more than twenty feet away in the adjacent ceremonial room—the Centurions were waiting.

  And there was no telling what they were going to do—with either the assailants coming in from above, or their prisoner. The man moaned and begged to be set free, in between vague threats.

  “It’s Agent Redbeard,” Carmen said in a hushed whisper. “They have him.”

  “Should we help?”

  Carmen’s eyes flitted between the gap and Linus’ face, clearly torn on the decision. Her training probably suggested that she shouldn’t leave her comrades behind. But her supervisor had thrown any notions of loyalty out the window when he’d ordered Tillus—and the UCD agents within—to be torched.

  She ground her teeth and pushed herself flatter into the hidden nook.

  There was her answer.

  The crew from above broke through. Linus heard arrows whistle through the still air, the sound of armor clinking as the Centurions rolled out of the way. Orders shouted in a foreign tongue. The copter’s blades chopping at the thin atmosphere and trailing away.

  A metal canister rattled as it hit the floor of the ceremonial chamber.

  “Tear gas,” Carmen said, and Linus felt a gloved hand squeeze his nose and mouth shut before he could even react. A sharp, foul-smelling smoke filled the air—the little that got into Linus’ respiratory system burned like hell. He stifled a cough and tried to retch, but Carmen held firm. Amidst the hissing gas escaping the canisters, Linus heard men rappel in.

  The first few sword thrusts were bone-chilling. The final ones less so, as the pained moans and hopeless cries had subsided into silence. The Centurions hadn’t been ready for this type of attack, despite their years of preparations. Apparently the helicopter, too, had caught them off guard.

  Burning the bridges hadn’t worked out.

  A gagging cough erupted from the silent chamber. At first Linus thought he was the culprit, but then he realized there was one other person without a mask in this wretched temple.

  Leif Redbeard.

  There was a muted plea for mercy, then a single arrow shot. Footsteps. The sound of a door or a platform descending, locking into place. The voices speaking instructions that Linus couldn’t understand faded.

  Linus felt the hand slip away from his face. He took a single hesitant breath and threw up. Carmen stepped out of the way and patted him on the back.

  A sudden grinding sound made him jerk backwards against Carmen, smashing her against the rock. She jabbed him in the ribs, but Linus didn’t move.

  “What is that?”

  “Come on, get off,” Carmen said.

  Somewhere, Linus could hear ancient gears creaking and clacking together, moving some unseen heavy object. The scraping noise reverberated all throughout the temple. Ice crashed off the mountain peak outside. Recalling the cave collapse in China, Linus prayed that lightning wouldn’t strike twice.

  But despite being fashioned from ice, the Diamond Dragon proved to be a formidable structure. Finally, the last gear clicked into place, and the temple gave a large shudder. Then all was still, except for Linus’ hurried breaths.

  Carmen shoved him out into the second floor room. It was really nothing more than a narrow hallway from which scouts could watch for invaders. Linus glanced back at their hiding place. Damn good. In the dark of night, and the way the temple was designed, it looked like the wall was entirely seamless.

  I
mpossible to tell anyone was inside the crevice, if you weren’t looking.

  Linus ventured a look outdoors. The charred rope bridge dangled off the cliff’s edge. No hope of heading down the mountain that way.

  “I think they killed Agent Redbeard,” Carmen said.

  “Who’s they?”

  “Let’s go find out,” she said.

  “You were close?” Linus said, dragging his cold feet along the slick floor.

  “He wasn’t a good man,” Carmen said as she walked towards the main chamber. “Just my boss, driven by obsession, putting everyone else in harm’s way for his own ends.” She made a small gesture to the surrounding temple, and Linus understood. The man had pushed his coworkers hard and taken many risks in order to reach this fabled land, all to see his family again.

  Perhaps noble, but the costs had been high. Too high.

  The fact that his team had to be eradicated—and an entire town with them—was proof enough that Leif’s leadership qualities were somewhat lacking.

  “Strike’s still out there, I think.” Linus hoped. He hadn’t heard anything from her since she had screamed to unsuccessfully warn Keene.

  “They didn’t go outside,” Carmen said in a low voice. She pointed at the chunk missing from the ceiling. “They came to enter the dragon’s belly.”

  “I don’t like dragons all that much,” Linus said.

  “You know there’s only one way we can go, right?”

  “Don’t tell me,” Linus said.

  “If they burned the bridge, then the way out is within,” Carmen said. “So we follow them.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  Carmen brought a finger to her lips and rushed into the main ceremonial chamber. She was headed towards Leif’s final resting place. Linus had no interest in following her, but he also had no interest in being left alone in Shambhala.

  Linus whispered out the window. “Strike.” No answer. “Strike. Strike!” He almost yelled it, but didn’t need to.