Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle a-2 Page 16

  “Who are you?” Tam Nok asked.

  The old man shook, as if a sudden chill had raced through his body, then he turned serious. “She called me Lailoken. That is what I was called long, long ago. When I counseled the King. The first King I counseled that is. Yes, I told him much. But he didn’t listen. They never listen.”

  “We will listen,” Tam Nok said.

  “I warned them!” He stopped and smiled, transforming his entire face into an old, gentle man. “They called me Lailoken. They called me other names. Later. Myrddin. When I was with another King. Have you heard that name?”

  “Myrddin?” Penarddun’s voice quavered.

  “Yes.”

  “Merlin in the new tongue,” Penarddun said.

  “I prefer Lailoken. It is the name my mother and father gave me. Sometimes the languages get confused in my hand. I know many languages and have been to many lands. But you-” he pointed at Tam Nok- “you are something new.”

  His voice changed once more and became manic. “I told the King. The first King. I told him about the dragons. One red. One white. Fighting, fighting, fighting. All the time. And that’s why his walls collapsed. He could not build his castle.”

  “King Vortigen?” Penarddun asked.

  The old man nodded.

  “Vortigen ruled over five hundred years ago,” Penarddun said in a lower voice to Tam Nok and Ragnarok.

  “It was a long time ago,” Lailoken acknowledged. “I told him of the dragons under Dinas Emrys. The red and white. And if he drained the pool, the dragons would come out and he could build his castle. Of course, I also told him that the white dragon would kill the red. And since his symbol was the red dragon, he did not take this news well. But he was not a believer. The white, ahh-” Lailoken trailed off.

  “The white was the line of Artor- Arthur,” Penarddun whispered.

  “Yes. But there was more to the prophecy,” Lailoken said. “All people remember is Artor and the table and the stories of the sword and the warriors in their armor. And even now most don’t think it was true. But those things were not important. What was important is I saw the future. I saw the Shadow coming once more. I wanted them to prepare. To stop fighting among themselves.”

  “The Shadow?” Tam Nok pressed.

  His eyes closed and he pressed his hands against the side of his head. “Darkness coming out of the Earth. A wall of darkness. And out of the darkness death and suffering for all. The earth itself will shatter, fire will come forth. There will be a deadly rain that will kill the beasts and all the plants. All life. The witches, three sisters, will come first, to clear the way.”

  That struck a chord with Ragnarok. “The Valkyries?”

  “Valkyries?” Lailoken. “In your land, they are called that. Witches. Demonesses. Succubesses. Hand maidens of the devil. Forerunners of the darkness. Whatever.” Lailoken suddenly sat down, the staff across his knees. “I am tired. And hungry. I have traveled far to be here.”

  “Why?” Tam Nok asked as she pulled some dried meat and stale bread from her pack and handed it to the old man.

  Lailoken’s voice lightened once more. “Why am I tired? Because I traveled far. Why am I hungry? Because I ate little while I traveled. Why did I travel far? Because I needed to get here.”

  Tam Nok was very patient. “Why are you here?”

  Lailoken stuffed his mouth with bread and flecks came out of his mouth when he answered. “To meet you, of course. At least I think it is you I am supposed to meet. I am not so sure of things now as I used to be.”

  Ragnarok frowned. The old man looked like a beggar- except for the staff- and he spoke like a crazy man. He had seen such before, living on the edge of a village, begging for food, babbling about all sorts of nonsense. There were some who believed the crazy to be the mouthpieces of the Gods, but Ragnarok thought they were just broken people.

  Tam Nok shoot him a dirty look, as if she knew what he was thinking, then she sat next to the old man. “Lailoken, please tell me why were you seeking us?”

  “To help you.” He shoved a piece of dried meat into his mouth.

  “How?” Tam Nok asked.

  Lailoken laughed, spewing pieces of half-chewed meat. “How? How should I know? You should know. What help do you need?”

  Tam Nok’s voice was patient. “We need to lift the memory stone at Stonehenge.”

  Ragnarok snorted. “We need to survive the attacks of the Valkyries first.”

  “It was not called Stonehenge when it was built. And it was not built for your people-” Lailoken pointed a finger at Penarddun- “to dance around and worship.”

  “Why was it built?” Tam Nok asked.

  Lailoken shrugged. “I have forgotten. It was before even my time.” Lailoken held up the staff. “This will help you do both things you desire.” He tossed it toward Ragnarok and the Viking, despite his surprise, caught it with one hand. It was deceptively light. The shaft was not wood but a material he had never felt before but he sensed was very strong. He held the spear in front of his face. The head was a foot long from the point and spreading to a width of eight inches at the base. Ragnarok reached to test the edge with a finger, but halted as Lailoken hissed a warning.

  “Don’t do that. You’ll slice your finger off and not know until it is on the ground in front of you.”

  Ragnarok pulled his other hand back. The edge did appear to be very sharp. He flipped the staff and looked at the carved figure. A seven-headed snake, the likes of which he had never seen before. He heard of such from his mother, a creature called a hydra.

  “That can open the memory stone?” Tam Nok asked.

  “So I have been told and so I tell,” Lailoken said.

  “Who told you?” Tam Nok asked. “The Ones Before?”

  Lailoken’s hand paused on the way to his mouth with a load of bread. “Ones Before?” He seemed to be deep in thought for several seconds. “They want to help, but they can’t come here like the Valkyries can. Not anymore. Long ago, long ago, they could. Many changes. Things they don’t even understand so I do not pretend to understand.” His voice changed tone, becoming sing-song. “So they told me. Told others. Gave us signs. Sent messages. But many didn’t listen. Don’t listen.”

  “If we take you to the stone,” Tam Nok said, “will you open it for us? We will listen, I promise.”

  Lailoken leaned over until he was lying on his side. “Yes. I will open the Stone. But first I must sleep.”

  Chapter 15

  THE PRESENT

  1999 AD

  The first thing Dane was aware of was that there were others around him. Alive. He reached out with his mind- Sin Fen and Ariana very close. Pushing further, he picked up DeAngelo’s swirling dreams. They were all unconscious.

  Dane sat up and opened his eyes. It was cold and pitch black. There was not even the slightest bit of light for his eyes to adjust to. He remembered the flashlight Ariana had had. He reached down and got on his hands and knees.

  He touched a body and checked vital signs. Pulse was good and as far as he could tell by feel, nothing was broken. From the mental impressions he was receiving, he knew the body was Ariana.

  He continued with his search and given the small size of the sphere came across Sin Fen’s unconscious form a few seconds later. Dane did a quick medical survey of her also, as he had been taught three decades ago in special forces training and had reinforced with his years of search and rescue experience. Sin Fen also seemed to be battered but not broken. Dane paused before continuing to look for the flashlight. He reached up and placed his hands on either side of her head.

  He focused his mind. The surrounding darkness and silence helped, reducing his sensory inputs to just the grating under his knees and the head between his hands.

  Dane saw a massive, flat-topped pyramid. It was large, over five hundred feet high, made of black stone, reminding Dane of one he had seen in Mexico, but larger than that, even larger than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. The stone glistened in the sun
light.

  A line of people in various colored cloaks were lined along the steep stairs on both sides. At the very top was a stone slab, surrounded by a ring of people in black robes. All were dark-skinned, with black hair.

  A body was lying on the slab. A woman. She was different than those around her. Fair-skinned with very blond, almost white hair. Her blue eyes were wide open, staring straight up. She wore a red robe. She turned to one of those in the black robes who held a staff in his hand and her mouth moved.

  She was saying something but Dane heard nothing. There were three men and a woman standing at one end of the platform. Not wearing robes, but rather shiny armor with leather underneath. Swords were at their waists, bows slung over their shoulders and spears in their hands. Their faces were hard- a look Dane knew well. Warriors who had seen much death. He could tell they were anxious, wanting whatever was to happen to occur. He knew, simply by seeing them, that they had accompanied the woman on the slab to this place after a long and perilous journey. The female warrior cast a nervous glance to the north. In that direction Dane now saw a dark cloud- the Shadow filling the horizon. A gate was open and growing, coming toward the pyramid.

  The woman on the slab finished speaking. She looked straight up into the perfectly blue sky above. The cloaked man she had been talking to placed his hand on her forehead. She nodded very slightly. He removed his hand. He moved over and placed his staff in a small hole next to the slab she was on. It slid down a foot and then stopped.

  The other priests and priestesses were chanting. A halo of blue light surrounded the woman’s head. Her body arched upward from, her mouth rigid with pain but Dane could hear nothing. The man twisted the staff. The glow around the woman’s head was growing larger. Something was happening to her head.

  Dane squinted, trying to make out what exactly what-

  A lance of pain ripped through Dane’s head above his left eye, knocking him backwards. In the process of doing so, he let go of Sin Fen’s head, but it didn’t bounce back on the deck as she sat up in the darkness.

  The pain was gone as quickly as it had come.

  “What’s the status?” Sin Fen asked.

  Dane rubbed his forehead. “It’s dark, we have no power and I can’t find a light.”

  “Ariana must have cut all power completely when she shut the computer down,” Sin Fen said.

  “Better than have that thing get into the computer like it did her airplane in Cambodia.”

  “We have no clue what happened. We don’t know if what hit us was a probe from the gate.”

  Dane could hear Sin Fen moving in the dark.

  “You know it was,” Dane said. “You could sense it just as I could.”

  Dane shut his eyes as a beam of light cut through the darkness. Slowly he opened them. Sin Fen had turned on an emergency light above the master computer. Ariana stirred and Dane helped her sit up.

  “How are you doing?” Dane asked her.

  “I’m living,” Ariana replied. She squinted into the light. “The habitat seems to be intact. What the hell hit us?”

  “I don’t know,” Dane said.

  Ariana shivered. “It’s getting cold.”

  “Can you get us powered up?” Dane asked.

  Ariana nodded. She sat down in front of the computer and pressed a button. The screen glowed. “At least this is working. It will take me a little while.”

  * * *

  Captain Bateman had been left alone for hours. Submariners tended to stay out of areas they weren’t supposed to be in and the computer center led to no other area- a dead end- and because of that no one had tried the door. And because the computers had run efficiently for that entire time period.

  Bateman closed a panel and checked his watch. He was ready. Now it was just a matter of time. He leaned back and pressed both hands against the side of his head. Pain, like the ticking of a watch, was throbbing on the right side, just behind his ear. He slid his right hand across the skin and felt a bump underneath- it seemed to his fingers to be vibrating slightly to the same beat as the pain.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them, confusion showing. For the briefest of moments he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. But the moment passed and a curtain came down over his thoughts. He slumped back once more.

  * * *

  “The habitat seems to be fine,” Dane’s voice was like ointment on a wound for Foreman who had been convinced Deeplab IV and everyone in it was gone.

  Foreman looked up at the status board. There were red lights flashing. An officer ran up. “Sir, we have confirmed the NSA’s tsunami alert for the northwest coast of Puerto Rico. Whatever came out of the gate generated a lot of power and it’s headed for the coast.”

  * * *

  Tsunami is Japanese for harbor wave. The mile and a half diameter projection from the Bermuda Triangle gate toward the Milwaukee Deep had generated a force that disturbed the mass of water it passed through, much as a child moving his hand through his bathwater caused a disturbance except this was billions of times more powerful.

  In the deep water of the Puerto Rican Trench, the effect was negligible, even though it had almost destroyed Deeplab IV. But as the effect went southeast, the depth decreased dramatically, transforming the power of the tsunami. The generated wave, no more than twelve inches in height at the beginning and initially traveling at four hundred miles an hour, slowed as it got closer to land. The energy that had been in the velocity was reflected by the rising ocean bottom, forming an ever-higher wave. The distance between the wave crests also shortened, changing the power vectors in the wave.

  There was no time for a warning. Those on the shore noticed that the water seemed to draw away, as if the tide had suddenly gone out. If it had been Hawaii, where people knew about tsunamis, this would have given those who saw it warning, but Puerto Rico had not been hit by a killer wave in over a generation. Some people even walked out onto the suddenly dry ocean bottom, picking up fish that had been left behind by the sudden disappearance of water.

  The water returned with all the vengeance of a thousand runaway freight trains lined shoulder to shoulder, moving over two hundred miles an hour. Water is very heavy, a gallon weighing eight and a half pounds. A bathtub full of water weighs almost three quarters of a ton. There were millions and millions of bathtubs full of water lifted by the force of the wave that approached the northwest tip of Puerto Rico. Added to the weight, the force of moving water increases as the square of the velocity. Even though the wave slowed considerably as it grew in height, it still hit the shore at over sixty miles an hour.

  The first tsunami hit the coast with a crest of sixty feet. The first to die were those who had walked out onto the beach. Thousands more died with the first wave, not so much from drowning, but by being smashed by debris picked up and carried with the wave as it thundered inland. Coastal villages that had survived the numerous hurricanes and tidal surges associated with that weather event in the region were obliterated as the wave thundered ashore.

  Fishing boats were carried a quarter mile inland. Houses, the majority built of wood, were shattered and smashed, the debris becoming part of the wave still moving inland. Cars and trucks were picked up and tossed about like toy models.

  The survivors of the first wave barely had time to pick themselves up before the second, slightly smaller wave crashed ashore. Eight waves in all hit the island in the space of five minutes battering the coast as if the very hand of God had come down and wreaked punishment upon the people.

  The beach to a distance of a quarter mile inland was scoured clean of all building except those made of the stoutest reinforced concrete which were few and far between. Trees were knocked over, power lines ripped out of the ground, sewage systems flooded, the water table contaminated- all the space of those five minutes.

  In that short period of time over eight thousand people died and the wounded numbered in the tens of thousands, overwhelming the island’s surviving medical capabilities. Local hosp
itals were destroyed and because most of the roads had been washed away, help was slow to get to the region.

  The sea water that had been dumped on the island slowly made its way back to the ocean, carrying with it a tide of corpses. Most of those who died were never found.

  Chapter 16

  THE PAST

  999 AD

  Ragnarok put his ear to the ground and listened, but there was no sound of horses’ hooves striking the Salisbury Plain. Then he stood and scanned the night sky. The stars glittered back at him from a perfectly clear heaven. No cloaked Valkyries riding the wind. Of course, at the speed they had arrived the previous evening he knew they could appear in a few seconds and be on top of them. Then he would find out how Lailoken’s staff would work against the demon women.

  He felt the power of this place. The stones were very, very old, aged beyond any Viking grave markers he had ever seen. He could sense the generations of worshippers before Penarddun and her kind, stretching back to an unknown people gathered here, worshipping Gods he had never heard of.

  The bodies of the King’s men lay fifty meters away where the Valkyries had slaughtered them. The fact that the bodies had not been stripped of their armor or weapons told Ragnarok that no one had dared come near the strange stone structure during the day.

  The condition of the bodies reinforced the legend of the Valkyries as the men had been maimed badly. Ragnarok had noted where armor had been sliced open as easily as a thin cloth shirt. There was no sign any damage had been inflicted on the Valkyries. Ragnarok knew it would not be long before the patrol was missed and other soldiers of the King came searching.

  “I need the help of your Norse warrior,” Lailoken said to Tam Nok. They were standing around the memory stone, the towering formation of Stonehenge surrounding them.

  Ragnarok stepped between Tam Nok and Penarddun and next to the old man. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I will open the stone,” Lailoken said, “but I am too weak to lift it.”