“You’re right!” Chase shouted as he returned the tripod to the sled. Faint echoes came back to them from the depths of the space. “So, where are we kicking off?”
“Over there.” Nina pointed toward the plume of steam rising from the nearby labyrinthine area. “We’ll start with what’s closest and work our way up to the temple.” She switched on a powerful flashlight to test it. The brilliant beam sliced through the sapphire-blue glow of the cavern like a laser. Satisfied, she clicked it off again; now that her eyes had adjusted to it, the light permeating the ice above was more than bright enough to see by.
“Okay, Matt,” Chase said into the radio. “We’re setting off.”
“Got you” came the reply. “So what’s it like down there?”
Chase took in the sight of the frost-crusted temple dominating the city. “Nina got it right. It’s kind of … wow.”
Trulli snorted. “Fat lot of use you are. You better bring me some awesome photos, okay?”
“Will do. Talk to you soon.”
They crossed the short distance to the walled edge of the maze, Chase towing the sled. Nina looked toward the dam, picking out the dark spot of the drainage shaft drilled through it. Even though it had been less than an hour since the water level had finally dropped below its bottom edge, the surface was already frozen, shimmering glassily. Given another hour in the frigid cavern, it would be thick enough to walk on.
The steam rising from behind the wall told her there were warmer conditions ahead, however. Finding an opening, they went through. “What the hell’s this?” Chase asked. The outer wall enclosed an excavated area, inside which had been built a gridlike series of walls, a marked contrast to the curves found elsewhere. The pit had remained full of water as the lake drained, and the surfaces were now frozen over … but it was obvious from the metal bars covering each chamber that whatever had once been inside them was meant to stay there. “A prison?”
“I don’t know,” Sophia said thoughtfully. “It looks more like the hypogeum at the Colosseum in Rome. Remember? The area under the arena where the gladiators and animals were kept before contests.” Chase nodded.
“You’ve been to Rome?” Nina asked him. “With her? You never mentioned that before.”
“I’ve been to loads of places I haven’t told you about, and can we not get into this again? But yeah, it does look like it.” The underground area at the center of the Colosseum was made up of small, high-walled chambers connected by narrow corridors, and the structure before them followed a similarly functional pattern. “So what did they keep in here? Gladiators?”
“Or animals,” Sophia said. “Beasts.”
Nina shone the light into the nearest chamber but could make nothing out through the milky ice. Instead, she directed the beam across the pit. Walkways and stone bridges crisscrossed it, intersecting at what she took to be guardhouses. Steam rose beyond them. “That must be where the volcanic vent is. Let’s take a look, then head into the city.”
They crossed a bridge into one of the squat guardhouses, the first fully intact construct of the Veteres Nina had entered. Disappointingly, it was empty except for what appeared to be a coiled whip hanging frozen on one wall, though its design still told her something; the slitlike windows around the room would have given the guards a view of the chambers below while keeping them hidden from the occupants, a primitive panopticon.
But who, or what, had they been watching?
Chase went to the little building’s other entrance, ice crunching with each step. “If they used the volcanic vent to get hot water, they’ve still got plenty.”
Nina and Sophia joined him, looking out across the pit. The layout of the walls changed, the cell-like chambers becoming larger. Some were even roofed rather than open to the elements. But what Chase had called their attention to was natural rather than man-made. Somewhere beneath the pit, the heat of the vent was still warming the water … and it had kept flowing from its source even as the rest of the trapped lake froze around it, carving weaving gullies through the new ice.
“It’s like a maze,” Chase remarked. One section of the pit was more open than the others, and the hot streams had gradually melted their way to it, eating twisting, steaming gouges out of the ice.
Nina was more interested in the walls surrounding the pit. “If this was a hypogeum, that space might have been an arena.” She crossed a bridge over a passage and peered into the cramped cells below in the hope of spotting some revelatory detail, but saw only ice and stone. “Maybe there’s a way down where the hot water’s melted the ice.”
“Is that really necessary?” sighed Sophia. “Hypogeum, prison, slave pens, zoo—whatever it is, it’s not going to hold anything more important than the temple. And time’s become an issue.” She pointed at the cavern’s ceiling. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“Noticed what?” Nina began, before it struck her. Literally. A fat drop of falling water burst on her shoulder. Others plopped down around them, the frequency slowly increasing.
“Shit!” Chase said, realizing what was happening. He raised the walkie-talkie. “Matt, we might have a problem. The steam from the volcanic vent’s starting to melt the ice. I don’t know how long it’ll take before there’s any danger, but it might be worth moving the plane away from the hole. And I wouldn’t sit around it, either.”
“That could screw up the radio,” replied Trulli, his voice already distorted.
“Have to chance it.”
“Could it really collapse?” Nina asked nervously.
“I dunno. The ice is pretty thick. But some bits might fall off, and ten pounds of falling ice’ll fuck you up as much as ten tons from that height. Sophia’s right—we ought to get moving.”
Nina reluctantly accepted his advice, crossing another bridge to bring them through the outer wall near the rest of the city. Away from the rising steam, the dripping stopped. They tromped across a patch of open ground, where she noticed the remains of vegetation under the ice. “God punished them by sending the cold to kill the trees …,” she said, remembering the inscription in Australia.
“Know what it reminds me of, Eddie?” asked Sophia, smiling. “The Yorkshire moors.”
“Tchah,” said Chase, jokily dismissive. “At least Yorkshiremen don’t run off to a different continent when it gets a bit nippy. This lot were wimps!”
They reached the first structure. Nina estimated the “igloo” to be roughly eleven feet tall and around twenty feet in diameter. The neighboring buildings, abutting it at the base, appeared identical. “No windows … no doors either. How do you get in?”
They moved around the group of structures, finding that they were arranged in a circle. Other domes nearby were clustered in the same way, between seven and ten to each group. Eventually they came to a paved road, one of the small branches Nina had seen coming off the main route running through the center of the city; a gap between two of the buildings led into a kind of courtyard. Smaller domes, presumably for storage, filled the gaps between the clustered groups, the entrances of which were finally revealed: tall, thin archways facing the center of the courtyard.
It was Chase who realized the logic behind the design. “It’s for shelter,” he said. “Valley like this, near the coast, you’d get a lot of wind blowing through it. Put ’em all together in a circle and you get some protection.”
“They’re houses,” said Nina. “Maybe each cluster was for one particular family group.” She went to one of the archways and switched on her flashlight, moving cautiously inside. The entrance was more than seven feet high, but somehow it still felt cramped.
“Anything inside?” Chase called to her.
“Nothing.” The interior, like the guardhouse, was empty, puddles frozen on the stone floor. The Veteres had apparently taken everything with them when they made the long voyage back to Australia. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything here,” she had to admit, turning back. “Let’s try that main road.”
Th
ey moved along the side road, passing more groups of domes before emerging on the central route bisecting the city. The first things that caught their attention were the statues along its sides. The larger-than-life figures were oddly stylized, tall and thin with high foreheads, long necks, and small mouths. “They look like African tribal art,” said Nina.
Chase nodded. “Like that ugly bugger you used to have.”
“It was a lot nicer than your stupid Fidel Castro thing,” she said defensively, aiming her flashlight at another statue across the road. The first had been male; this was female, a woman holding what looked like one of the clay cylinders they had found in Australia. It stood on a small plinth—with writing on it. “Now, what does this say?” she wondered, crossing the road for a closer look.
Sophia came with her. “That’s the word for ‘prophets,’” she said, pointing it out. “The other word is ‘keeper’ or ‘holder.’”
“Keeper of the prophets? A priest?” Nina turned. Uphill, the temple rose imposingly, the cold light glinting off the copper strips at its summit.
They continued, passing more statues: men and women, some holding objects that apparently denoted their role in the ancient society while others simply stood in poses of authority, but all clearly figures of great importance. The line came to an end at a high, freestanding archway; some sort of ceremonial gate, Nina guessed. Beyond it, they followed the road to the temple. More statues lined it, apparently representing the same people as the ones farther downhill—but this time, they were not in poses of authority. Quite the opposite.
“What’s wrong with this lot?” Chase asked, leaving the sled to regard the bowed, kneeling figures with curiosity. “Lost their contact lenses?”
“They’re praying,” Nina said. She looked to each side of the road, seeing only open land. “No more houses. This whole section of the city’s devoted to their religion. The statues are people the Veteres considered important in their society … but even they bow to their god.”
She tipped her head back to take in the full height of the temple. Even with the flashlight’s beam, she still couldn’t tell how much of the building was buried within the overhanging ice. She brought the circle of light down to the massive open doors. It disappeared, swallowed by the darkness within.
“Maybe he’s still inside,” said Chase. “You know, their god. Frozen.”
“I hardly think these people would take every last chair, plate, and spoon with them but leave their god behind,” Sophia said.
Nina walked to the entrance. “Only one way to find out.”
Chase and Sophia switched on their own flashlights as they followed her. The sound of ice crunching beneath their boots changed as they moved inside, echoing from the inner walls of a large, high space.
Nina suddenly stopped, her flashlight aiming upward. “Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“You know you said their god might still be in here?”
“Yeah?”
“You were right.”
TWENTY-THREE
The other two flashlight beams moved upward to join Nina’s. “Christ on a bike,” said Chase, amazed. “That’s a big fucking statue.”
The stone figure before them was at least sixty feet tall, a giant standing against the back of the high circular chamber, reaching almost to the domed ceiling. It was male, carved in the same elongated, blocky style as the statues outside, but on a much greater scale. Its right arm hung down by its side, holding what looked like a sickle; the left was extended across the chamber, palm upturned as if scattering seeds. It wore a necklace of copper or, possibly, gold, the style reminding Nina of an ancient Egyptian menat necklace of the kind worn by the pharaohs, though with several long metal counterpoises extending down over its chest. A similarly ornate belt ran around the statue’s waist, a long copper loincloth descending from it.
And between its feet, at floor level between the statue’s heels, was a low opening, less than three feet high, leading to another chamber behind it. The rest of the room before the mighty figure was empty, an open space in which the faithful could worship.
Nina directed her light at the statue’s head. It had the same high forehead and narrow jaw as the smaller statues outside. She was about to look at the necklace when something else caught her attention—not on the statue, but just behind it. “That remind you of anything?” she asked.
“It’s a stained glass window,” said Sophia unenthusiastically, more interested in the gold adorning the statue’s accessories.
“No, I don’t mean the window itself—I mean its shape.”
Chase saw what she meant. “Lofty’s got a halo.” The window was circular, lines of colored glass radiating outward. It was unmistakably a representation of a light or fire surrounding the figure’s head.
“Yeah. Now, that is interesting.”
“What, so the sixty-foot-tall bloke inside a temple buried in Antarctica isn’t?”
“You know what I mean. Halos are an almost universal piece of religious iconography—they appear in ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Greek art, as well as Buddhist. But they’re most closely associated with the Abrahamic faiths, even Islam. Modern Muslims don’t portray Muhammad in artwork, but ancient Muslims did, and he was almost always shown with a halo or heavenly fire around his head.”
“Only this predates any of them,” Sophia pointed out. “By a long time.”
“I know. That’s why it’s so interesting.” She crossed to the hole between the statue’s feet. “The way to the tree of the gift…. Let’s take a look.” Small icicles hung from the top of the low opening. She swatted them with one hand, sending them tinkling to the ground, then crawled through the gap. “It is a form of supplication,” she said. “If you want to follow the path, you’ve got to grovel at your god’s feet.”
The passage was short, emerging in a circular room about fifteen feet across. She stood, finding that the room was actually a shaft, extending upward. Unlike the enclosed temple, the open shaft was blocked by a roof of ice. She could make out the other side of the stained glass window, but of more immediate interest was a set of steps, blocks of stone protruding from the wall at roughly two-foot intervals, spiralling upward. Icicles hung from them, thicker and heavier than the little ones she had dislodged.
“Come on through,” she called. Chase and Sophia soon appeared. “I think I know what this is for—apart from being a stairwell, obviously. It was open at the top, so if you were inside the temple, daylight would come in and light up the halo behind the statue’s head.”
“Fascinating,” said Sophia in a bored tone. She examined one of the stone blocks. “Are we supposed to climb up these? They look rather slippery. Maybe we should go back to the sled and get the climbing gear.”
“I thought you were the one in a hurry,” Nina countered.
“That was when we were on solid ground. I’m more than happy to slow things down if it means not plummeting to my death.”
“Eddie? What do you think?”
“We could get the ropes,” Chase said, “but it’d mean a lot of buggering around, and it’d definitely slow us down.” He climbed the first few steps, the crampons’ spikes making a grating rasp. “If you’re worried, then yeah, I’ll rig something up, but if you think you can keep your footing …”
“I’ll be fine,” Nina proclaimed. “Don’t think you can manage, Sophia? English rose wilting?” Sophia looked annoyed, but she took the first step.
With Chase leading the way and Nina at the rear, they picked their way upward, backs pressed against the wall. Ten feet, twenty. Nina paused to cast a light toward the top of the shaft, seeing a darkened passageway opposite the giant window. “Well, at least we’ll be able to get out.”
“Would’ve been a good idea if you’d found that out before we started climbing,” Chase said. He put his foot on the next step and climbed up. Ice crackled—then, with a sharp snap, a piece on the outer face of the block broke loose, an icicle on the underside dropping with it.
Both shattered into millions of fragments on the stone floor below. Chase grunted, double-checking his footing.
“Good thing it didn’t fall from above us,” said Nina. The ice sheathing the blocks overhead was thicker, the icicles longer—and sharper.
They kept ascending, passing thirty feet—the halfway mark to the icy ceiling. At around forty feet up, Chase stopped. A large chunk of ice had become frozen against the wall, sticking out enough to make getting past it a tricky proposition. He looked up. The coating of ice got thicker higher up. He guessed that lumps had broken loose from the ceiling as the water level dropped, bobbing on the surface only to stick to the wall as it froze.
“Hold still,” he said, taking a small pickax from his belt. “I’ll have to chip this thing off the wall.” The clink of metal on ice echoed around the shaft as he hacked away at it.
Nina used the wait to take a better look at the window above. The metal used to hold the pieces of colored glass together was not lead but gold. “Wow, look at that,” she said, amazed. “I think we just found one of the world’s most expensive windows.”
“They certainly weren’t short of gold,” Sophia remarked. “Did they bring it with them, or did they find another source here?”
“Antarctica’s got plenty of mineral deposits—it’s just getting to them that’s the problem. For us, anyway. Not having to dig through hundreds of feet of ice would have made it a lot easier.” Nina looked past the other woman to Chase. “How’s it going, Eddie?”
“Not bad,” he said, still chipping away. The ice creaked, its weight pulling it loose. A final strike of the pick, and the misshapen block of ice broke away with a gunshot crack, plunging down to explode against one of the steps below. Smashed shards rained over the bottom of the shaft.
“Anyone need ice?” Chase said with a grin. “Okay, we’ll—”