Chapter 3
Six Weeks Ago
"You have got to be kidding me!" Solomon Zond exclaimed emphatically looking at the forbidding topology before him and his team.
"That's the co-ordinates, Solomon," Maggie assured him, "That's where we'll find it."
"Or our next clue," Vincent observed.
"If it's even still there," Cal added.
Before the group, towering up into the snowy distance, was a pinnacle of rock and ice. The team had travelled for most of the long hours of daylight and, although the hour was late, the sun was still present above the horizon. At that time of year, in such northerly latitudes, the sun hardly dipped below it and full darkness never really fell.
"Okay," Solomon sighed and nodded, "Let's set up camp. We'll do a tour of the base of the rock tomorrow: see what we can find out about the lie of the land. I don't want to climb it if I don't have to and if there is even the slightest hint of a cave or crevice we'll check that out first."
In what shelter from the ever present wind the rock offered, the team pitched their tent. The thick, well insulated edifice had been carried in parts on the various supply trailers attached to the group's individual skidoos and, once assembled, provided quarters for all four travellers. Maggie and Calvin slept fitfully on opposite sides of the domed structure, Solomon slept as soundly as if he were at home in his own bed and Vincent lay silent and still, whether asleep or discreetly watchful it was impossible to tell.
The next morning, when Solomon awoke to find that Cal had already given up his struggle to find rest while both Maggie and Vincent now dozed peacefully, the light filtering through the tent suggested a duller day. Sure enough, when the team made their way outside, they found the sky above overcast and threatening snow.
"Let's get on with it," Solomon said as Maggie handed round equipment, "Hopefully we can get this thing before that cloud bursts."
Leaving Maggie with the computer equipment in the relative warmth of the tent, the three men made their way around the base of the protrusion.
"I hate to say this," Cal announced as they turned around a second sharp corner of rock, "but this is beginning to have an awfully familiar feel."
"I know what you mean," Solomon replied, scanning the rock face with the gadget in his hand as well as his narrowed, sharp eyes, "but I can't get any good readings. If this is what we think it is, either the glyphs aren't on this part of it, have never been on any part of it or, most likely, have been worn off by wind and ice."
Eventually, the three made their way around a fourth corner and back to the camp. Maggie was waiting for them in the tent with her eyebrows raised.
"I take it you got the data back okay then," Solomon said, walking over to where Maggie sat and peering over her shoulder at the computer screen.
"Not only that," Maggie replied, "I've used the lines on this side of the pyramid to work out what sort of size it was originally. Even sheltered as it is from the prevaling wind, there will still have been some erosion from the ice, so I can't be accurate, but taking into consideration the material it is made of and the amount that is missing, I'd say this pyramid is at least as old as the one we found in Antarctica, possibly even older."
"There doesn't seem to be any hint of layers, as far as I can see," Cal mused as he looked over the image on the computer screen, "and it certainly isn't having the same effect on its surroundings as the one in Antarctica. That could point to it being built with a different technology, maybe an older one."
"Or it could just point to it being built for a different purpose," Solomon observed, "I didn't pick up any cracks or possible openings in the rock face though."
"If there is a way in, it would be much lower," said Vincent, "Remember how far below the ice the pyramid in Antarctica descended. We cannot be sure of much, but we can be sure that what we see here is merely the tip of a far larger structure."
"You're beginning to sound like an archaeologist!" Solomon teased.
"Let's just say that I'm familiar with the concept of hidden depths," Vincent quipped.
"Well, we can't go in," Solomon shrugged, "And we certainly can't go down. Not with this equipment. That leaves us with going up. Maggie: you stay here with the computer equipment and keep an eye on us. Let me know if there's any change in the weather heading our way."
"Weather reports say there's a seventy per cent chance of snow within the next three hours," Maggie told him, "Think you can make it?"
"We've got to try. If we wait until the storm passes and it does break here, then the new snow will make the climb more dangerous. We'll take this side: it's not as eroded as the others, which might make it difficult to get a grip on it, but it's not as steep, it's more sheltered and if there is anything left higher up, any doorways or inscriptions, it'll be on this side."
"Understood."
The three men made their way back out of the tent, hurrying towards the near side of the pyramid. Vincent led the climb, followed by Solomon, then Cal. The eroded tip of the pyramid stood hundreds of feet above them, a faint white point against a grey, cloudy sky.
For the first hour, everything was going well, then Maggie's voice crackled through the radios.
"Solomon, the weather front has moved. It's heading directly towards you now and it's moving fast. You'll have snow within the next half hour or so if it keeps this course and I'm not just talking the edge of the storm, I mean the whole thing."
"Thanks Maggie," Solomon called back on his radio, "We'll try and get a move on."
"If we pick up the pace a bit, we should be on the way back down before the storm hits," Vincent advised his comrade, "And, once it does, we should still be sheltered by the pyramid itself."
"Let's get going then," called Cal.
As the pyramid narrowed, the climbers fell into line below each other. With the wind whipping round the sides of the pinnacle, the climbers slowed. They were just a few metres from the top when the storm began hurling snow, sleet and ice at them from the other side of the pyramid.
"I've got some glyphs!" Vincent shouted down over the noise of the wind, "they look similar to the ones we found in Antarctica and in Haley's journal."
"Only similar?" Solomon called back.
"There is another here: it looks more Egyptian. It's an eye."
"Like the Eye of Horus?"
"Yes, I think so. It's hard to tell from the weathering."
"Can you move it? Is it a switch? It there a panel there?"
"I'm just clearing off the snow now. I think there is something here. There's a break in the glyphs. It's too regular to be a crack. It's round."
"Try and push it or twist it or something."
"I think it's hollow. Like the one on Elm Island. Hang on."
Barely visible above him, Solomon could see the snow-obscured figure of Vincent pull out an ice-pick from his supplies. He had just raised the pick to strike the pyramid when there was a cry and Solomon felt himself pulled suddenly downwards.
"Cal?" Solomon cried, struggling to maintain a hand-hold on the icy rock, "You okay?"
"Something hit me," Cal's voice shouted up from below, "I lost my grip. I can't move my arm. You're gonna have to cut me loose."
"No way. Not from up here."
"The angle of the slope should mean that I can just roll or slide down. It's not a sheer drop, just a long one, but I've a better chance if I don't have to worry about being landed on by you two."
"Another minute and we'll be heading down anyway. Just try and hold on with your good arm."
"And then what? You can't carry me down, it's too dangerous. You have to cut the rope. I'll land near enough to the tent and you can grab the artifact and get down safely."
"He's right Solomon: you have to cut him loose," Vincent called down from above, "We can't hold his weight and if he brings us down with him, on top of him, he has no chance."
Two hours later an unconscious Calvin was strapped to the supplies trailer of Vincent's skidoo as the other three made the last checks on their supplies and newly acquired find before heading back, post haste, to the nearest form of civilization.
"So that's it," Calvin finished, "we ran into some bad weather and I lost my grip. I nearly cost us the artifact, but Vincent managed to get it anyway. It's a circular disc, like the wheel of Dharma but with the eye of Horus at its centre. We think it's another part of the ring."
"And my Dad: he just cut the rope? He let you fall?" Nikko asked, aghast.
Calvin looked uncomfortable and avoided Nikko's eyes.
"Not quite," said a voice.
Nikko looked up to see Maggie standing in the doorway behind Cal.
"What Cal's not telling you is that he cut the rope himself," she said gently, "Your father wouldn't let him go so easily, and the storm was getting worse, so your friend here took matters into his own hands. He was lucky. If the slope of the pyramid had been much steeper, his leg wouldn't have been all he broke in that fall."
Nikko looked back at Cal who was staring at the wall with gritted determination. He was confused. On one hand, Cal had been about to let him believe that it was Nikko's own father who had put him in his present condition and risked killing him in doing so. On the other, Cal had risked both life and limb, by his own hand, to make sure that his father and Vincent were in no greater danger than necessary and that they got the vital piece that had warranted the dangerous ascent in the first place.
"Y-your arm," Nikko said, avoiding the topic, "it was whatever hit it up there that dislocated it?"
Cal nodded stiffly.
"Any idea what it was?"
"We think it could have been a large ball of compacted ice or a chunk of rock broken off from somewhere else and blown by the storm," Maggie said, filling in Cal's silence, "Whatever it was, it left a good sized bruise in his shoulder, even after the ones from the fall started to disappear. He was lucky that it was just his shoulder it hit. If his head hadn't been behind the pyramid, a blow of that magnitude would easily have knocked him out, even with the helmet, and could even have killed him outright."