Avengers: Unbreakable
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Episode 1: Confluence
Chapter 35
Previous relevant chapter: 32
Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella National Park, Norway
Donald Blake leaned heavily on his cane and watched the ultra-fast Stark Industries aircraft that brought him here bank west out of a vertical takeoff. Tony Stark himself had stayed behind to get to work immediately on his own problem – several dozen microbots embedded in his chest. But he'd put one of the company's top pilots at Blake's disposal. After a few days' delay to clear his schedule, Blake was back in Norway.
Stark's pilot had groused about the landing spot. But the jet's vertical landing capability allowed him to drop it within a kilometer of Blake's goal. Blake, for his part, had worried about the pilot's low, fast approach across the national park – fearful it would draw unwanted attention from the authorities.
But as it was, it figured to be one of Blake's easier expeditions. He clambered over a low ridge, then turned and started along the length of the gully on the other side. Before long, another ravine entered from the left. Blake turned down it. A few dozen meters along this, he turned right down another rift. His progress was slow, given his bum leg. But slowly and steadily, he burrowed deeper into the jagged barrens.
His tablet device, displaying an electronic copy of an ancient map, cast a glow on Blake's face every time he checked it, which he did often. At last, he reached a small cave opening into the hillside. He pulled a flashlight from a pocket and went inside.
Blake knew that this cave had both a front and rear entrance. But as the rear entrance could be approached only over extremely rough terrain, he had chosen this one. He shuffled along for perhaps 30 meters, then, checking his tablet again, turned left and stepped into a dark alcove in the rock. He held his flashlight up and found runes carved into the alcove's rock ceiling.
"This is the place!" he whispered excitedly. His breath fogged in the cold.
Whether these runes had been seen before by human eyes, Blake could only speculate. But it didn't matter. Anyone who had found them wouldn't know what they meant.
But he did.
After checking them once more carefully, he backed out of the alcove into the main channel of the cave. Then he started counting steps: one – two – three – four – five . . . . After thirty-nine, he turned around and looked up. In the ceiling was another recess, angling away from him. Shining his flashlight in, he could see that, just at the recess' highest point, a low shelf protruded. He couldn't see whether anything was on it, but he could reach up and run his hand along it.
When he did, his hand hit something hard. Something long and narrow and round – like a staff! He could feel his heart pounding with excitement as he gently removed the object and brought it down for closer view. "At last!" he thought. After all the years, all the fruitless searches, at last I hold the fabled Staff of the Wanderer!
He shone his light directly on the object, up close, and . . . .
"What the hell?"
The staff he held was not the ornate Staff of the Wanderer he'd expected, but an ordinary stick. No markings, barely even any evidence of having been carved. It was gnarled and uneven, unadorned with either character or picture. Just a stick. Like some college kid on a weekend hike might use then throw away.
"No!" Blake said quietly, shaking his head. "This is impossible."
He turned the stick over and over in his hands. Nothing. No runes. No symbols. No significance.
"No. No. No!" He cried again. "This was my last hope!"
The only thing he could surmise was that someone must have gotten to the real staff first. Then, for reasons he could only speculate, they replaced it with this worthless and poorly crafted imitation.
He turned his face upward into the darkness of the cave. "NO!" he shouted. "This was supposed to be it! This was supposed to be my destiny!"
Just then, he heard voices coming from the direction of the cave entrance.
You have got to be kidding me. Again?
The pilot's flyover must have brought the authorities after all. Damn!
He realized then that they'd probably heard him shout. That would mean they already knew he was in here. He feared that if the Norwegian authorities caught him again, it would mean prison time.
I've got to get out of here!
He thought of the rear entrance of the cave. His only hope was to make it out the back entrance, radio for a pickup, and hope the super-fast pilot could make it back in time.
"It's worth a try."
Scurrying along as best he could, he made for the back entrance. He was still carrying the worthless little imitation staff, but it proved helpful at least in one respect: by using both it and his normal walking cane, he was more stable as he scrambled along the cave's narrow, uneven passages. But he could tell the voices behind were gaining on him.
Blake stumbled along as fast as his frail body would carry him, trying to hold his flashlight while walking with both canes. He bumped and scraped past stalactites and tight squeezes again and again, until he was scraped and bruised and sweating in spite of the cold. But eventually, he turned the last corner to the exit . . .
. . . to find it blocked.
What!?
It looked as if a cave-in had occurred recently, and the rear entrance was completely blocked with rock. He stood blinking at it in disbelief. During which he could hear unmistakably that the pursuing voices were getting closer.
"My God, I'm cursed!" Blake shouted. He didn't care if they heard him now. He was trapped. Trapped in a Norwegian cave, his last hope for finding the Staff of the Wanderer dashed, and the authorities closing in on him. The end of the line for his quest, his dreams, his destiny.
"It's over," he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe this is happening."
Blake lowered his head in resignation, a posture that might have looked like prayer under different circumstances. "I'll never find it now." The voices behind him drew closer still.
Then, in one last burst of frustration, he raised his head and let out a yell that roiled from the deepest recesses of his being. The anguished cry of one who's dreams have been crushed, whose hope in the world has gone out. Then he raised the stick he'd found in the cave, and in a blind act of impotent rage, brought it crashing down onto the boulder that blocked his escape route.
In that instant, a blinding flash of light filled the cave, and the tremendous clap of a noise like thunder vibrated into the very earth itself.