The Invisible City (A Tom Wagner Adventure Book 3)

by M. C. Roberts

  Tom ignored her question, shining his flashlight on the walls of the tower. “Why isn’t the tower filled with water?” he wondered aloud. “It’s what they call a hydrostatic paradox, isn’t it? The water inside should be just as high as the water outside.”

  Hellen often forgot that Tom was actually an unusually intelligent guy. Normally, all he let people see was the overgrown kid.

  “I don’t know why . . .” Hellen admitted. “But let’s count ourselves lucky we don’t have to dive again,” she added as they continued downward.

  They had to hop over an occasional gap in the stairs, and as they approached the bottom they could see that the floor of the tower was submerged. “There’s your water,” Hellen said.

  At the foot of the tower the water was hip-deep and trickling in from the lake through cracks in the walls created by the last foreshock. Slowly but inexorably, the tower was filling with icy water.

  “What now?” Tom said.

  Hellen shrugged and shone her flashlight around. “Here’s the answer to your hydro question. There are no doors or windows down here. It’s a completely closed system. Presumably, someone sealed the tower from the outside a long time ago. Maybe to make it harder to access?” Hellen speculated, as she stepped into the bitterly cold water.

  “Well, it looks like the systems are starting to reconnect,” said Tom. “We’d better hurry.”

  Hellen waded in a circle, shining her light on the tower floor. “There’s something down here. Give me another flare.”

  “They’re up top in your rucksack, but I’ve still got a few of these.” He withdrew three six-inch-long glow sticks from a side pocket of his overalls. As he stepped into the water himself, he bent the sticks and a blue glow slowly filled the room.

  “Blue light,” Hellen said. “For some reason, it makes me think of Rambo.” She grinned at Tom, and a smile also flashed on his face, if only for a second. Tom threw the sticks into different places in the water and he and Hellen stepped back and looked at the huge relief that shimmered in the blue light of the glow sticks.

  “This has no business being here,” Hellen said in surprise. “We’re in deepest Russia and as far as I can tell, this is a Nordic rune circle. These characters were used as far back as the Vikings.”

  “The Vikings? Can you read it?”

  “Lucky for us, I happen to know Norse code,” Hellen said.

  They looked at each other and both burst out laughing. For a few seconds, they were able to forget that they were sitting in a cave that might collapse at any time, that Tom’s grandfather and Father Lazarev were dead, and that Cloutard was being held hostage. For a few seconds, everything was good between them again.

  “And you call me an overgrown kid?” Tom said, giving her an affectionate nudge.

  Hellen’s eyes grew melancholy. “We were good together, you and I. What happened to us? Why exactly aren’t we together anymore?”

  The moment was rudely interrupted by another ominous rumbling, bringing both of them back to the urgency of their situation.

  “Okay,” Tom said. “If these are Nordic runes, and we’re looking for artifacts from Nordic mythology, then we’re in the right place. But I don’t see anything like the chest that Father Lazarev mentioned.”

  “I think I’ve got an idea,” Hellen said, and a second later she ducked underwater. She picked up one of the glow sticks and examined the rune circle more closely. Tom could see that it was actually a series of concentric circles, and Hellen was now running her hand over some of the runes.

  “I think I’ve got it. It’s a kind of Caesar cipher,” she said when she resurfaced. “Let me think for a minute.”

  “As far as I’m concerned you can take as long as you like, but I’m not sure if Mother Nature is going to wait for you,” Tom replied.

  She said nothing, but simply stood and stared at the runes. Then she dived down again. She pushed the concentric circles as if turning the dials of a combination lock, and they moved with surprising ease. Tom heard a grinding, scraping noise, muffled by the water, as she turned each of the circles, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in the other. In between, she came back to the surface to breathe.

  “One more and I’ve got it,” she said, after diving several times.

  Suddenly, gas bubbles rose to the surface as the center circle jolted upward with a grating noise. A small pillar rose about eighteen inches from the flooded floor. Tom’s eyes widened as he saw a compartment built into the stone column. Inside it was a tall, narrow box—it had to be the chest that Father Lazarev had spoken of.

  “Don’t just stand there like a statue. Help me!” Hellen said. Carefully, they lifted the long chest out of its compartment. Then they retreated a short way up the spiral stairs to get out of the icy water and set the chest on a step. They’d found it! They looked at each other with a mixture of joy and relief.

  Without warning, the earth trembled again, the low rumble bringing them back to the moment. Without a word, they picked up the chest and began their ascent, Hellen leading the way. Stones fell past them into the depths. More cracks appeared, and water began shooting in through more and more fractures in the wall.

  “Can’t we just wait for the tower to fill up and then swim? That sounds easier to me,” Hellen panted.

  “Sure, but what if the tower caves in? No, we have to get out of here as fast as we can.”

  The earth shuddered again, and Tom looked up just in time. “Watch out!” he shouted. Hellen let go of the chest and jumped forward just as one of the tower bells fell directly between them. With a loud gong, it took a huge chunk out of the stairway and tumbled on into the depths. Tom was just able to hold onto the chest and press himself back against the wall.

  “Are you all right?” they heard Brice call down from above. “I don’t want you kicking the bucket down there.”

  “Your concern is truly heartwarming,” Tom shouted back. Two more circles around the tower and they would be back at the window.

  A fracture appeared where the bell had destroyed the stairs, and a jet of water shot from the wall. The water was pushing away tiles on the inside of the tower, making the hole bigger by the second.

  “Take the chest,” Tom ordered, holding it out to Hellen.

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Take it!” Hellen looked fearfully into Tom’s eyes. “Take it!” he yelled at her. Stunned, she did as he said and reached for the chest. Balancing precariously, Tom lifted the chest over the top of the jet of water that separated them. Hellen grabbed hold of it and pulled it over to her.

  “Go. I’ll be right behind you.” Hellen hesitated a moment longer, then turned and hurried up the stairs, even as the wall continued to crack and the water tore at the stairway.

  She reached the window where they had entered the tower. The Welshman was standing in the wobbly boat, waiting impatiently for Tom and Hellen to return. “Did you find it?” Hellen nodded and handed the chest down to him through the window. “Where’s Wagner?”

  “He’s right behind me,” she said as she climbed onto the edge of the window. She turned around just as another shock thundered through the cave, making the tower shudder, and she slipped from the window and fell awkwardly into the boat. A boulder cracked free from the roof of the cave and fell directly onto the dome.

  “Tom!” Hellen screamed as the tower collapsed and sank into the blackness of the lake.

  67

  Beneath the Church of Our Lady of Kazan, Lake Svetloyar

  “Where is Tom?!” Cloutard asked as he helped pull the boat ashore. Hellen shook her head absently and stared at nothing. Her eyes said it all.

  “Wagner’s doing a little sightseeing,” the Welshman said with a laugh. He waved Qadir over and handed him the chest.

  Hellen climbed out of the boat and Cloutard took her in his arms. Now she could let it out, and she burst into tears. Cloutard held her tightly and pressed his cheek against her head. It felt like an eternity be
fore Hellen slowly began to collect herself again. She did not want to leave Cloutard’s protective embrace, but Qadir came and separated them.

  “That’s enough weeping and wailing,” the Welshman said. “It’s Ms. de May, isn’t it? I really am terribly sorry about what happened to your friend . . .” He paused for a moment, then went on with amusement, “Actually, I’m not sorry at all. I’m glad I’m finally rid of the troublemaker.” He laughed spitefully and stared at Hellen. She would have tried to throttle him if Cloutard hadn’t held her back, and the soldiers raised their Kalashnikovs to keep her in check.

  “You despicable asshole,” Hellen hissed. “I promise you’ll pay for what happened to him.”

  Brice and Qadir laughed out loud.

  “And just how to you plan to do that, little lady? It’s quite possible that you’ll join your friend out there—we haven’t decided that yet,” Brice said, pointing out over the lake. “Now, whether that happens depends entirely on how well you continue to cooperate. So far, you’ve been extremely sensible.” He went over to the chest and crouched over it. There was no visible lock, just the two handles, one on each end. “Now, how do I get this thing open?” Annoyed, he grasped it by the handles and shook it roughly.

  “I don’t know,” Hellen said. “I only had the thing in my hands a few minutes, and I had other things to deal with than figuring out how to open it. I don’t know any more than you do.”

  The Welshman stood up again and went back to Hellen and Cloutard.

  “Well, now, that’s exactly what I don’t believe.” He took out his .22 revolver and shot Cloutard in the thigh. François cried out and fell to the ground, cursing. Blood pulsed from the wound.

  “Fils de pute,” Cloutard muttered, pressing one hand onto the wound.

  “You insane fucking bastard!” Hellen screamed at Brice.

  “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Let’s try again, shall we? How do I get this damned box open?” The Welshman moved uncomfortably close to Hellen and stared into her eyes threateningly. She turned her face away.

  “You obviously haven’t studied the legends of Kitezh deeply enough,” Hellen said. “Otherwise you’d know that only the pure of heart can see the truth. And as you’ve so impressively shown, you are anything but.” She knelt beside Cloutard, took off her belt and wrapped it around his leg. Slowly, to avoid the impression that he was reaching for a weapon, Cloutard reached into his jacket pocket for his hip flask and drank a mouthful of the 3000-dollar-a-bottle cognac. Then he looked sadly from the flask to his wound, took a final swig, and poured the rest of the liquid over the wound. He grimaced in pain as Hellen, with the belt and a piece of fabric from her overalls, applied a makeshift pressure bandage to stem the flow of blood.

  In a rage, the Welshman stomped to one of his soldiers, grabbed his Kalashnikov, racked the bolt, and pointed the gun at Hellen and Cloutard, who were cowering on the ground.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Hellen said. “Go ahead, shoot. We’re not going to help you anymore.” Cloutard looked at Hellen with admiration, then nodded in agreement.

  “Aaarrrgghh!” Brice screamed, and he turned and emptied the entire magazine at the chest in one sustained burst. Everyone ducked for cover, and even Qadir flinched. Sparks flew and ricochets whistled past their heads, but miraculously no one was hit. When the smoke cleared, all eyes locked onto the chest, but it had not suffered a single scratch.

  “That’s impo—”

  But that was as far as the Welshman got. And for Hellen, the next few moments passed in slow motion. At first, she did not hear the rumbling or feel the swaying, but she saw chunks of rock, large and small, falling from the roof and slamming into the cave floor like grenades. And despite the utter hopelessness of their situation, she somehow knew with crystal clarity: I will not die today.

  Just then, a boulder fell directly onto one of the soldiers, crushing him. The other two soldiers were knocked over, then scrambled to their feet and ran for the passage that led back out. Brice and Qadir were also thrown off balance.

  “Where are you going, you cowards?” Brice bellowed after the soldiers. “Help me!”

  “Sorry. No amount of money is worth dying for here,” one of them shouted back. The soldiers disappeared along the path by which they’d entered, and for a moment everything fell quiet. But not for long.

  Qadir was just straightening up again when, as if from nowhere, Tom appeared on the shore and threw himself at Brice’s henchman.

  “Tom?” Hellen stared open-mouthed as he battled Qadir on the cave floor in front of her. For a moment, Tom gained the upper hand, landing a hard, angry blow on Qadir’s nose. In the meantime, Brice had regained his feet and was reaching out for the chest. But just then another shock rocked the cave, this one more powerful than any before it. His fingers missed the handle of the chest and it slid away in Hellen’s direction. She grabbed one of the handles just in time to stop it from sliding into the lake.

  Qadir had managed to break free of Tom and was standing when the next lull came. “Is that all you’ve got?” he said. He grasped his broken nose in one hand and wrenched it straight with a sickening crack. Even Tom flinched at the sound, and Qadir waved him forward.

  “Come on, finish him off,” Brice egged Qadir on. Like boxers, the two men circled each other.

  “I hope you washed your hands this time. Something like that could easily get infected,” said Tom, pointing at Qadir’s nose. If Qadir hadn’t already known that it was Tom who’d dragged him into the lavatory in Yurino, he knew now. Suddenly, the earth lurched and groaned again, and everyone grabbed the nearest boulder and held on. Part of the cave floor buckled and a deep chasm opened up behind Qadir, who struggled to keep his balance. Tom darted forward and booted him in the chest, and Qadir stumbled back and fell with a final scream into the gaping abyss.

  When the tremor finally settled, Hellen looked around. Brice had vanished. She jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Tom.

  “Are we already dead, or are you here to lead us to the afterlife?” asked Cloutard, still lying on the cave floor and not entirely convinced that Tom was actually standing in front of him.

  They had made it through another tremor, but surviving the next was looking more and more unlikely. They had to escape the cave as quickly as they could, but their only exit had been cut off by the enormous rift that had swallowed Qadir.

  “How are we going to get out now?” Cloutard said.

  But Tom and Hellen were not listening. They were gazing into each other’s eyes. Hellen still could not believe he’d made it. She pinched his upper arm.

  “Ow!”

  “Just checking,” she said. Then she leaned forward slowly, beckoning to Tom to kiss her.

  Cloutard rolled his eyes and lifted his hip flask to take another drink, only to realize in horror that he’d already emptied it.

  “Merde!” he swore as he looked up at his friends.

  Tom accepted Hellen’s invitation, pulling her close and leaning down. But just as they were about to kiss, they were interrupted by a familiar voice.

  “So really: why exactly aren’t you two still together?” asked Arthur Julius Prey, wearing a broad grin.

  68

  Beneath the Church of Our Lady of Kazan

  Silence fell for a moment as they processed what they were seeing. Tom and Hellen cried “Grandpop!” simultaneously, and then glanced sheepishly at one another.

  “It’s not a dinosaur, but it should get us out of here,” Arthur said, and he clapped the palm of his hand on the rusty steel plate of the vessel that had just surfaced in the subterranean lake.

  Tom’s grandfather was looking at them from the open hatch of an aging civilian research submersible. The observation dome in the bow was two-thirds submerged, but they could see Father Lazarev inside, waving enthusiastically.

  “Fantastique!” Cloutard shouted, and he tried to stand up.

  “You coming? Or were you planning to wait for the nex
t tremor?” Arthur waved them aboard and disappeared inside the sub.

  “A little help?” Cloutard said. Tom and Hellen hurried to him and heaved him onto his feet. Together, they helped him negotiate the narrow hatch, and Hellen climbed down after him.

  Then the real quake struck, shattering the silence. The foreshocks had been bad enough, but they were nothing compared to this. A boulder the size of a car fell from the cave roof, missing the submersible by a hair’s breadth and sending a wall of water over the vessel, almost capsizing it.

  “The chest!” Hellen screamed as loud as she could to make herself heard over the earthquake. She had reappeared at the hatch just in time to get soaked by the wave. Tom nodded and ran back, struggling to keep his footing. The chest began to slip, but he leaped after it just in time to stop it from sliding into the newly-opened chasm. He wrapped his arms around it and zigzagged back to the submersible, dodging falling rocks. He jumped onto the deck and passed the chest down through the hatch. Then he looked up and froze—where the tower had been, the cave ceiling was collapsing with a roar. Brilliant sunlight shone through the gap; the rays filtering through the dust looked almost divine.

  “Tom! What are you waiting for?” Hellen called from the hatch. But for a few heartbeats, he simply stood and stared in wonder at the spectacle. Then a chunk of rock the size of a tennis ball clanged against the steel submersible, jolting him out of his reverie, and he slipped through the hatch. They had to hurry: in a few moments, the entire cave would collapse and bury them beneath it.

  Arthur locked the hatch. Small stones fell like hail on the outer skin of the submersible as the five of them squeezed together in the tiny, rusting cabin.

  “All aboard?” Father Lazarev asked, then said, “Then let’s go!” And the vessel dove in a flurry of bubbles.

  Father Lazarev smiled knowingly as he switched on the submersible’s floodlights, and everyone held their breath. The sight in front of them was something they would not forget as long as they lived. Huddled close together, they gazed through the observation dome. The floodlights illuminated the ruins of Kitezh on the lake floor, which only hinted at the city’s former magnificence. Like meteorites striking the earth in slow motion, countless rocks and boulders sank onto the city, destroying the last semi-intact structures. Despite the spectacular nature of the event, a somber mood filled the sub.