Elfstones are Forever
Chapter One
Istanbul was not the most exotic location Lara Croft had ever visited, but rare finds do not always turn up in far-away places. Istanbul was once known as Constantinople, and before that as Byzantium, and had stood on the shores of the inland Sea of Marmara since 675 BCE. Enough history to inspire an archaeologist to visit, certainly, but not usually enough to draw the attention of a specialist like Lara. But these were not ordinary circumstances.
The Sea of Marmara is not very deep, around 4,490 feet at its deepest, but it lies along the path of the North Anatolian Fault. The Fault is not entirely stable, and from time to time earthquakes hit the area. One of these had occurred a year or so ago. It had not been strong enough to disturb anything on land, but had caused enough chop to sink the pleasure-yacht of a visiting American millionaire. Crew and passengers had all got off safely, but there were a number of valuable items left behind, so the owner had hired a local salvage company to retrieve them.
When the divers had located the wreck, they had also found several unusual objects in the area. Most of them had been pieces of worked stone, and had been dismissed as wreckage from one of the numerous sieges the ancient city had undergone. But the eye of one of the divers had been drawn to a metal cylinder which appeared oddly bright and untarnished, despite what must have been a long submergence. Since this was not part of the salvage they had been paid to recover, the young man had appropriated it as a souvenir.
The diver was an Australian named Jimmy Dundee, who had been a University friend of Laras'. Visiting London on holiday shortly after making the find, he had given her the cylinder as a gift, aware of her interests. Lara had carefully cleaned and examined the object. It was about a foot long and three inches in diameter, made of an unfamiliar silvery-grey metal. About four inches from one end was a band of a different metal, which seemed to be enamelled black and was sealed with a silver oval cartouche.
It was, however, the device on the cartouche that really got her adrenalin flowing. A stylised tree, surrounded by seven stars, all surmounted by a crown. Symbols readily recognisable to the fans of a popular fantasy trilogy, but of far greater significance to those who knew what Lara knew. Carefully, she cut the black metal band, leaving the seal intact, and with some difficulty opened the cylinder by pulling the end out. The seal was clearly both watertight and airtight by design, a sample of rare craftsmanship.
Inside were two rolls of thick parchment, both with seals of white wax bearing the tree-symbol. Again, Lara made shift to open the scrolls without breaking the seals. Both were covered with writing, the ink barely faded. Though they were both written in the same hand, both the scripts and the language differed. One, she could not read at all, but the other was in a language she had learned a few years before under unusual circumstances. This is what she read:
This day, being the fifteenth day of Ivanneth in the Year 7 of the New Reckoning (the seventh year of the King Elessar), Bergil son of Beregond is appointed to be a Guard of the White Company.
His Oath of Service being taken by Prince Faramir of Ithilien, in presence of the Lady Eowyn, the Thain Peregrin and Captain Beregond, said Bergil is granted all duties, rights and privileges of his station.
So entered by Mardil, Scribe of the Records, and sealed by King Elessar.
After that, it had simply been a matter of setting up this expedition. Underwater digs were complex operations, but much had been learned from the British experts who had dived on and salvaged the Mary Rose in the 1980s. Technology was also far more advanced, and Lara had support from the Stark Foundation. Modular seabed bases, rebreather helmets and enhanced exoskeleton diving suits, as well as a variety of robotic submersibles had all contributed to making this dig, if not a walk in the park, at least non-suicidal.
Working outwards from the wreck of the pleasure-yacht, they had found it to be in the middle of a fan-shaped distribution of debris. In one direction were lighter items, samples of metal-work and pottery, in a style that did not fit any known period. In another were heavier ones, increasingly large fragments of worked stone in the main. Some were plain masonry, but scattered among them were parts of statues, slabs with carved script and a six-foot section of a sculpted frieze. As much of this as was practical was carefully gathered and taken to the surface, to a Stark International warehouse, leased for the occasion. Here it was cleaned, photographed and catalogued for in-depth study later.
The source of the debris proved to be a vast crevasse in the seabed, previously unmapped and probably a result of the quake. The robotic submersible that they sent down revealed a massive cavern containing, incredibly, the ruins of a city.
Using the robots, they surveyed the site as best they could. The city had obviously backed up against a mountain, and had been built in a series of circles around a wedge-shaped precipice that thrust out. Three circles were visible above a mass of silt and rock, but penetrating scanners indicated at least four more existed below. Tunnels had been cut in the precipice to allow passage from one side of the city to the other, but the uppermost circle stood on top of it. Images showed a good many buildings -some in ruins, some intact – and the remains of what must have been a beautiful, slender tower at the very pinnacle.
Having satisfied themselves that the area was stable, at least for now, Lara and her team finally ventured into the city itself. Almost immediately, they found something unique. Resting on top of the rubble inside the collapsed tower, as if it had been kept at the very top. It was a globe of dark crystal, perhaps a foot in diameter, and very heavy for its size. This was immediately taken topside.
Explorations carried on. Lara was paired with Jimmy, who had insisted on joining as soon as he knew she was in town.
"Wonder what Dads' gonna say about this?" Jimmy pondered as they made their way around the perimeter of an extensive but ruined palace.
"He'd tell you you're mad, but he'll be proud of you anyway." Lara replied.
"He reckons it's the Yank in me." Jimmy admitted.
Lara grinned behind her helmet. Jimmy's parents, legendary Australian bushman Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee and his American wife Linda, had always supported, but never understood, their sons' love of deep diving. Jimmy was earning a reputation as a fearless and skilled salvage diver, and Lara was happy to have him along on this expedition for that as much as for their friendship.
By this time, they had arrived toward the rear of the palace, and had encountered a wall that seemed to separate off a small section of land between the palace and what had been the mountain. A large, arched gateway stood before them, a few rusted pieces of metal scattered in the silt testifying to the fact that a door, long rotted away, had once closed the way. Beyond was a street lined with windowless buildings of common design but differing size.
"Some kind of temple quarter?" Jimmy wondered.
"Don't think so." Lara said. "In most cities the main temple or cathedral or whatever is as central and prominent as the palace or government buildings. No, those buildings look like tombs to me. This is some kind of necropolis. Probably for nobility and royalty, worth a look."
The buildings here had been protected by the bulk of the palace on one side and the mountain on the other, and so were mostly intact, though a few had fallen in. The wooden doors had all rotted away, but if Lara had any hope of grave goods, she was to be disappointed. The tombs were as uniform within as without, the walls lined with slabs, most occupied by skeletons in the rotted or rusted remains of garments or armour. Some personal jewellery was in evidence, but little else.
"Did they just leave them on those slabs, to rot out in the open?" Jimmy asked. "Gross!"
"Unless they had some way of preserving them, or maybe they stripped the flesh and cleaned the bones before they put them in here." Lara said. "With enough care, you can boil a body down to the bones, then clean and re-articulate them."
"Still gross!" Jimmy opined.
"True, but the forensic pathologists are going to love these guys!" Lara told him. "C'mon, I want to see inside the big one at the end of the street."
The slabs above the doors, which might once have indicated the families whose dead rested within, had long been effaced by the action of millennia of sea-water. But this tomb, though of the same basic design as the others, was much larger, and raised above the ground level. Within were several rooms, each lined with the usual slabs, all occupied by silent tenants.
But from one room, there came an odd green glow. Not the glow of decay, or the bio-luminescence of some deep-sea creature. It reminded Lara of the spring sunlight shining through the leaves in the park near her home. Without a word, the two divers followed the light.
On a slab in the far corner of the room, resting on the remains of a cloak it had clearly once fastened, was a heavy silver brooch – the metal oddly untarnished – in the shape of a spread-winged eagle. Set into the brooch was a large, clear green stone, and this was the source of the light.
"Even I know stones don't glow by themselves!" Jimmy noted. "Is it radioactive?"
The Stark-designed diving helmets included a small but efficient sensor array -sophisticated enough to warn of any immediate danger such as water-borne toxins, large creatures and high levels of radiation. The head-up display in Laras' helmet was giving no indication of danger.
"No, we're good." She said. "Whatever that gem is radiating, it isn't immediately toxic."
"Well, if they buried him with that, this guy must have been somebody special!" Jimmy stated.
Lara examined the skeleton. She had taken a course in forensic pathology, and while she was by no means an expert, she could make some judgements. He must have been tall – the skeleton alone was well over two metres long – and mature, if not very old, he still had all his teeth. Other than the brooch, he had no ornamentation and the cloak that was the last remnant of his clothing was surprisingly intact. Under the powerful beam of Laras' helmet lamp it's colour appeared a silver-grey.
His slab was set in a niche, and above it two carved stones had been set into the wall. Protected from erosion, the deep carvings on them remained clear. There were two inscriptions, in different languages.
"Make any sense of those?" Jimmy wanted to know.
"The one on the left, yes." Lara replied. "The language is called Westron, and I learned it in a place called Vie de Marlie a few years back. This one says:
Here lieth Aragorn son of Arathorn, who took the Crown in the name of Elessar Telcontar. Sixteenth Chieftain of the Dunedain, six-and-twentieth King of Arnor, thirty-fifth King of Gondor and first High King of the Realm Reunited. Heir of Isildur, wielder of the Sword Reforged and Companion of the Ring. He was laid to rest in this the House of Kings in Minas Anor in the hundred and twenty second year of the New Age and the two-hundred-and-tenth year of his life.
"Hell of an old guy to have all his own teeth!" Was all Jimmy said.
"Hmph!" Lara commented. "I might not have the translation right and anyway, we don't know how long these peoples' years might have been. Not every culture has the same notions of time as we do."
"Suppose so." Jimmy allowed. "Were these his kids, you reckon?"
Nearby were two smaller niches, the skeletons in them were both less than a metre-and-a-half long. Both also wore the remains of grey cloaks, fastened with silver brooches in the shape of a leaf, and each had a silver belt made from similar, linked leaves. Lara examined them more closely.
"These aren't kids." She stated. "Both have wisdom teeth erupted and the cranial sutures are closed. I'm not even sure they're actually human! Hominids, certainly, but not Homo Sapiens. Something isn't right about the skulls."
"There's some more of that writing above them." Jimmy noted.
Two more epitaphs in Westron. The first read:
Here lieth Peregin Trollslayer, son of Paladin, of the House of Took. Thain of the Shire, Councillor of the North Kingdom, Knight of Gondor, Guard of the Citadel and Companion of the Ring.
The second:
Here lieth Meriadoc Holdwine, son of Saradoc, of the House of Brandybuck. Master of Buckland, Councillor of the North Kingdom, Knight of the Riddermark, Sword-thain to King Theoden and Companion of the Ring.
"What's this 'Companion of the Ring' thing all about?" Jimmy wanted to know. "Freemasonry or something?"
"Beats me." Lara admitted. "Right, we'll leave the bodies for now, they'll need specialist handling. But we'll take the brooches and the belts, as well as that big brooch with the emerald. Let's get them bagged and tagged.
"Then we'll go and see what the others have found."
The discovery of such a spectacular site was usually cause for jubilation among a team, not argument. But the voices Lara heard when she finally reached the warehouse were raised in dispute, not celebration. As she and Jimmy entered, David was saying:
"It doesn't matter a damn anyway! The Establishment covered it up before, and they'll cover it up, now!"
Well, that was par for the course for David. The excitable young Yale graduate lived in a maze of conspiracy theories, and was inclined to claim that the finding of a common piece of Roman pottery a metre north of where the records said it would be was a sign of a cover-up. Lara tolerated his eccentricities because he could piece together a ceramic artefact out of a pile of tiny fragments in a matter of hours.
But David was clearly the third corner of this argument, and a minor one at that. The two main protagonists were Dr Arthur Sinclair – a tall, gaunt Oxford don in his sixties, expert in ancient writings – and Dr Avery Michaels – stocky, in his thirties, a Miskatonic University lecturer with an unequalled knowledge of prehistoric architecture.
Dr Michaels rolled his eyes at David, then turned again to Sinclair. "Look, Art, this is the find of a lifetime, I get that. We all get that. But it's a buried city, that's all. Until we can find carvings that tell us something, we won't even know what it was called, or who lived in it. Right now, the architecture looks simple, classical, even, and the sculptures look more realistic than stylised. I'd like to say it was Greek or Roman, but there are no records of a city here in either culture. It may be older. There are books back at Miskatonic that claim there are whole cycles of civilisation before the current one. We have to reserve judgement."
Sinclair sighed. "I do understand your caution, Avery. I am conscious of the need for it myself. But you know as well as I do that the Press are not, by and large, an academic lot. This dive and dig has already attracted considerable attention, not in the least abated by our leaders' well-earned celebrity status – I'm sorry, Lara, but it's true – and our caution in revealing our findings thus far.
"These people are not noted for patience or understanding – they want a story and they want it now, their livelihoods depend upon it. Many of them are well-funded enough to obtain sufficient equipment to dive on the site themselves, and we have no way of preventing them. They will undoubtedly observe what we have and draw the, to them, obvious conclusion. The result will be a media frenzy."
"That's gonna happen anyway." Michaels told him. "So what? It happened with King Tut and the Mary Rose. It never hurts to get people interested in what we do."
"Indeed not." Sinclair allowed. "But the tomb of Tut-ankh-amun and the wreck of the Mary Rose were both stable sites. The findings there could be independently corroborated and there were historical records extant to back them. Here, we have an active fault running through a submerged and subterranean site. Another quake could bury the city, seal the cavern or even collapse it. We also have no reliable records from other sources to back us up.
"My point is that if we do not immediately obtain independent and unimpeachable support for our discovery, we will find ourselves being accused of a hoax comparable to Rennes-le-Chateau, the Hitler Diaries or the Piltdown Man."
"And if we do start telling people, any people, about this, we risk losing credit for the discovery or turning the whole damn thing into a circus!" Michaels snapped.
"Just a minute!" Lara said firmly. "What exactly are we talking about here? It's a big find, yes, but why all the paranoia? Is there something I should know?"
Both men looked at her. Then Sinclair said:
"You've never read The Lord of the Rings, have you?"
"No." Lara said. "I read Temperance Brennan and Richard Castle, not fantasy. Why?"
"Because," Michaels said heavily, "the city we just found is virtually identical to JRR Tolkiens' description of the city of Minas Tirith in Gondor. It's a really important site in the books and the scene of one of the decisive battles."
"Oh, well that is odd!" Lara agreed. "Though it's probably a coincidence. I managed to translate a funeral slab in a tomb, and this place is called Minas Anor."
Michaels and Sinclair exchanged a glance, then Sinclair said. "I think it mentions in one of the Appendices that after the War of the Ring, Aragorn changed the name of the city back to Minas Anor."
"Aragorn?" Jimmy queried. "That's the guy whose gravestone Lara read!"
"Wait a moment!" Sinclair exclaimed. "How could you read it? What language is it in?"
"An old one called Westron." Lara told him. "I learned it a few years back from some...monks. In the Himalayas. They use it in their chants and things. Is that important?"
"Westron was the so-called 'common tongue' or lingua franca of Tolkiens' Middle-Earth." Sinclair explained. "It's the language rendered as English in the books.
"Look, there is a ...a metafiction associated with the books. Basically, it goes that Tolkien acquired an ancient tome called the 'Red Book of Westmarch', and that he translated and edited part of it to publish. Everyone thought he was just making it up for a laugh. I mean, I was an undergrad at Oxford in the late 60s and early 70s when the old man moved back there after his wife died. I met him once, at a college function, and he was a funny chap, loved a joke.
"But, if this city Is what it seems to be, then it wasn't a joke after all.
"Lara, this is big, bigger than anything that's happened since the Dalek invasion. It could push our knowledge of human history further into the past than we ever imagined. We need to get some big guns in on this before the press find out!"
Lara took a deep breath. "I can do this." She muttered to herself, it was her personal mantra. Then aloud, she said. "Right, here's what we do. Avery, Arthur, start calling round to the people you know. Solid, reputable people who can bring their own teams if necessary. Call your rivals as well as your allies, we want this wide open so nobody can call us biased.
"The rest of you, get on with your work. Clean or preserve, photograph, sketch, catalogue and label. By the book, everybody, OK?
"Divers, get some rest. We go down again tomorrow, and every day while the site is still accessible.
"I've got some people I can call, who might be able to help.
"Let's do this, and let's do it properly!"
Despite her own instructions, it was after midnight when Lara finally settled back in her seat at the desk in the warehouse office she had appropriated. A long and anxious email to the Temple of the Sword in Vie de Marlie had been the precursor to a lot of research on Professor Tolkien and his books, as well as a search of such portions of their collection of unthinkably ancient texts as Misaktonic University had deemed fit to share online. Her mind was swimming with information that might be myth or might, incredibly, be fact.
Half-forgotten tales of an ancient and advanced human civilisation in a primal world shared with other intelligent races - Elves, Dwarfs and Halflings – and riven by terrible wars against monstrous enemies. But nothing clear, nothing sequential except the best-selling fantasy trilogy written by an English academic in the 1950s. But that trilogy still had a thriving and loyal fan base – enough to generate thirty-five million hits on Google. All those people – how would they react if this Minas Anor turned out to be the city of the Men of Gondor in actual fact? Lara felt dizzy and more than a little sick. She had faced death frequently, survived situations her background and education could not have prepared her for. She had seen things she could neither explain nor fully understand. But this was massive, huge! It might very well change the world. Or it might be a storm in a teacup. Speaking of which...
Lara was just about to get up and put the kettle on when the dark crystal globe, which rested on her desk, caught her eye. She had dried it up and cleaned it off earlier, noting its perfect surface -without a chip or scratch, despite the fact that it must have gone through the collapse of the ruined tower they had found it in. but now something had changed. Before it had been black, but now there was a red glow deep inside the globe. As she looked, the glow grew more intense, and the room around her faded until she was aware of nothing but the crystal.
Then, quite suddenly, there was a face. A mans' face. Thin but strong, with a neat moustache and beard, dark hair with white patches at the temples, and piercing blue eyes. He stared at her for a moment, then said. "Who are you?" The tone and accent was that of an educated American, but before she could reply, he went on. "Wait, I have seen your picture in the papers. Dr Lara Croft, the archaeologist."
"That's right." She found herself replying . "Who the Hell are you?"
"I am Stephen Strange." He replied.
"Never heard of you." Lara responded. "Are you a wizard or something?"
"Yes." He told her. "Strange that you should know of wizards but not of me."
"I met wizards in Vie de Marlie." She told him."I didn't know there were any anywhere else. Or is that where you are?"
"No, I am in New York." He answered. "How have you come into possession of a palantir?"
"You mean this crystal ball thing?" She asked. "I found it on a dig today. What's your business with it, or me?"
"Magic, of course." He gave a grim smile. "A professional interest, you might say. I have one like it, and I believed all the others were lost, until mine activated by itself a few moments ago.
"Dr Croft, you must understand that while this thing is in your possession you are in great danger. There are people, and worse than people, who would not hesitate to kill to get hold of it. You must bring it to me in New York," he gave her an address in Greenwich Village, "or place it in the keeping of Warehouse 13 or Torchwood Four, or even the Temple of the Sword, if you know Vie de Marlie.
"Whatever your decision, I will send out messages to my allies and friends in the world. You are not alone. Those that have power for good will be on the watch, look for help where you least expect it.
"Now we must end this. The longer we remain in contact, the sooner they will find you. Move swiftly, and be safe."
Then he was gone, and the crystal was black again.
Lara barely had time to digest what had happened when a babble of shouts broke out in the warehouse below, to be silenced by a single shot. Then she heard a single raised voice. A mans', with the flat vowels and bitten-off consonants of an Afrikaaner.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you are now in the care of HYDRA. If you all remain still and silent for a short time, none of you will be harmed. Any attempt to resist or escape will be met with deadly force.
"Now, my men are going to perform a search of your finds. Rest assured that they will damage nothing. HYDRA is as aware as anyone of the importance of this discovery. However, we have reason to believe that you have found certain items which are the rightful property of HYDRA, and we intend to reclaim them.
"Should we choose to question any of you, it is in your best interests to answer immediately and truthfully."
Almost without thinking, Lara had reached into her desk drawer and pulled out the 9mm SIG she always kept within reach. The doorknob was turned quietly, and she swung the gun into a firing position, only to lower it at once as Jimmy slipped through the door. He came close and spoke in a rapid murmur.
"Christ, luv, it's a good job I know you like to work in the dark! Look, there's about a dozen blokes down there, armed to the teeth, going through the stuff. Reckon they're after the jewels we found."
"Who's in charge?" She asked.
Jimmy shrugged. "The South African. Got a bloody great scar on his face, and I reckon he's as mad as a cut snake. He's looking to hurt somebody if he gets the chance. He finds us hiding in here, we're up shit creek!"
"Ok, ok." Lara said. "This is what we do..."
"Standartenfuhrer? The office above was empty, and there are no signs of the items there."
The scarred man grunted, then turned to Sinclair, who had been allowed to stand up.
"Who was using that office? Was it Dr Croft?" He demanded.
Sinclair shrugged. "She was using it earlier today. But she was on the dive and will have been tired. She could have left any time in the last five or six hours without being noticed. We were all working at this end of the warehouse and would not necessarily have seen her."
Piet van Roek said nothing, but his artificial hand clenched and blue sparks crackled around it.
"Sir," the operative who had spoken before said quietly, "our orders..."
"I am aware!" van Roek snapped. Then he turned to Sinclair again and spoke with a forced politeness. "We will be leaving now. I advise you to remain quiet for at least forty minutes before contacting the authorities. Should you act in any way precipitately, the consequences would be unpleasant. There are explosive devices placed around and inside this building which will detect any attempt at external communication as well as any attempt to leave. These devices will automatically disarm precisely thirty minutes after our departure.
"Please continue your excellent work, Dr Sinclair. But do advise Dr Croft, should she contact you, that the consequences of taking and retaining HYDRA property are severe!"