The Tudor Plot A Cotton Malone Novella - By Steve Berry Page 0,29
a month. They come down every few days for supplies.”
He was now interested. “What made you think they were lying?”
“Too anxious. The hikers and scholars take their time. These men were in a hurry.” She paused. “They stay in a hurry.”
He was beginning to appreciate the woman’s perception. “You know where they are up there?”
“One of the herders told me they were beyond the midge lake, above the Álar basin. The hills there are hollow. Lots of caves and tunnels. But there’s nothing there. People have roamed them for centuries.”
“Did you tell them that?” Malone asked.
She studied him with a rapt expression. “As I’m telling you.” She hesitated a moment. “Another reason they’re treasure hunters.”
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“They didn’t believe me, either.”
Half an hour of discussion was needed before she warmed to them. It helped that Goulding seemed familiar with the region and understood some of the local peculiarities. A hundred dollars U.S. secured the rental of her Range Rover for the day.
They headed off on the only highway from town.
The roadway cleaved a canyon through red rock walls that displayed a geological layer cake of history. The peaks and hills beyond were molded in rust and yellow hues, dusted with snow. Steep remnants of ancient volcanoes drew their attention.
The absence of ice caught Malone’s interest. “For somewhere so cold, there’s little moisture.”
“I’ve always thought the name strange, too,” Goulding said. “Iceland. Yet there’s almost none here. The air’s too dry.”
The shopkeeper from the village told them about abandoned sulfur mines, formed when steam bubbles lifted lava through rock and hardened before shattering, resulting in a maze of passages and chambers. And though all of the mines were now gone, their remnants remained.
They followed the directions she provided, the road progressively worsening until it was more gravel path than highway. He estimated they were a good thirty miles from the village, isolated, no sign of anyone or anything.
“According to what she told us,” Goulding said, “it’s a hike up through those hills just ahead.”
Malone stopped the vehicle, and they climbed out onto a lava flow colonized by lichens. Dwarf willows hugged the black earth in scattered patches. Tundra spread off toward the north, a snowfield to the west.
He led the way up a slope.
Hiking this ground was like walking on ball bearings and he was grateful for the boots the military had recommended earlier. They were looking for a nemeton, the Celtic word for a sacred place in a remote locale. The ancient manuscripts referred to door mountain, noting its location in reference to a pyramid-shaped peak. Mountain ranges pierced the sky in a variety of shapes, basalt, tuff, and rhyolite clearly mangled over time. He realized that what was pyramid-shaped in the 6th century might no longer exist—the forces of vulcanism, ice, and plate motion surely altering everything around him.
He glanced at his watch. 9:45 AM.
It felt and looked like 5:00 P.M., especially since he was working on only a few hours’ sleep.
Then he saw it.
On a ridge half a mile away, before a black opening in the sheer rock face, he saw a campsite of three oversized tents. He studied the peak above and noted that it was indeed triangular—a crooked pyramid, but nonetheless a pyramid. He spotted no one near or around the tents.
“Let’s approach from the far side,” he said, gesturing toward a sparse clump of ash trees.
“You concerned about something?”
He detected apprehension in the question. “Are you okay with this?”
“I’m not an agent, but I did serve four years in the infantry.”
He laid a hand on the professor’s shoulder. “Not to worry. Just follow my lead.”
The camp was deserted.
A low methodic hum from one of the tents and two black cables snaking a path into the mountain signaled a generator. An assortment of footsteps were framed by scattered snow, all leading into the mountain. The entrance tunnel was surprisingly wide, which helped with his distaste for enclosed spaces. Lightbulbs tacked to the rock dissolved the darkness, revealing rough walls, sharp in places, the floor a mixture of sand and gravel.
“This chute is natural,” Goulding whispered. “From lava eons ago.”
They exited into a room about forty feet square with a high, vaulted ceiling. At the far end, illuminated by a stand of halogen lights, was what appeared to be an altar, a rectangular slab of blackened stone supported by two stone pillars, the structure elevated by a platform hewn from the rock. Goulding was drawn to the altar and began to focus on knotwork designs behind