Overlord

16

The downward-sloping path wound deeper into the bowels of the earth. Aston couldn’t shake the feeling they were descending into the maw of a waiting beast. After several minutes’ more walking, Reid led the team into a magnificent chamber. The group stood dumbfounded for several long moments, staring around themselves in wonder. The space was huge, stretching a good fifty yards or more across and almost as high. It was long, more than a hundred yards from left to right. The tunnel they had emerged from stood about one-third of the way along one long side. Across the other side, two more tunnels led away into darkness. The walls were largely smooth, crenelated in places, with stalactites and stalagmites bigger than two men, one standing atop the other, making a forest of upthrusting and down-hanging spikes. In the center-right of the enormous cavern a huge lake shimmered in the green glow. And that glow grew brighter as they stood there. More of the luminescent vines and fungus striped the walls, more small curling ferns filled the crevices. But more than that, sparkling flecks of bright, almost neon green glittered from every part of the cave, even the ground. The crystals seemed to absorb the light of their flashlights and grow brighter with it, as though they drank the brightness in and exulted in it.

“This is remarkable,” Larsen said, voice low with astonishment. “These crystals, they could be the…” He grimaced. “The greenium.”

“You think so?” Aston asked.

The geologist gestured weakly around them. “Look at it. What other explanation is there? It matches the profile. And the deposits are numerous.”

“Is this it?” Sol asked. “Is this the greenium?”

Larsen winced again at the word and Aston couldn’t blame him. But given the stuff was green, and the whole venture financed by Arthur Greene of SynGreene, it seemed unlikely the name would change. He felt that it had already stuck, however cringe-worthy it might be.

“I’ll start some tests,” Larsen said, setting down his bag.

Aston moved immediately to the large pool. The cavern floor sloped down towards it, the water filling a natural depression in the cave’s formation. He dipped his fingers in at the edge and smiled. It was warm, like a welcoming bath. He sensed a presence beside him and looked up. Slater stood there, filming with her smartphone.

“See what I’ve been reduced to?” she said, but her smile was weak. Aston saw some measure of fear in it.

Marla stood beside her, sound gear packed away in the bag over her shoulder. “At least you’re doing something,” she said. “I’m kinda redundant all of a sudden.”

“Kids are making entire movies on iPhones these days,” Aston said. “You’re hip, that’s all.”

“Hip?” She flashed a peace sign. “Far out, man! Peace, love, dope!”

He laughed, embarrassed. “Whatever. This is warm, almost hot. Must be fed by a geothermal spring.”

Terry Reid had been helping Sol set up some halogen lights and the cavern burst into brighter relief. Immediately the green crystals responded, brightening too, giving everything an alien vibe. But the light penetrated the water more and Aston felt a surge of joy.

“Look!” He pointed down into the water.

Schools of small fish darted back and forth in the deeper part of the pool, a few feet out from the edge. Jahara Syed came to squat beside him, Slater moving to the side to quietly film.

“You feeling better?” Aston asked.

Syed nodded. “A little shaky, but I’m fine. Look, see that plant life along the edge where the water gets really deep?”

“Almost the same bright green as the light from the crystals,” Aston said. “They almost look more like tentacles than leaves. Like some kind of giant anemone rather than a plant, you think?”

Syed scooted along on hands and knees to get closer and leaned over the water to look. “Could be. Hard to tell, they’re too deep to see properly.”

“And the fish!” Aston’s excitement had driven away all other concerns for the time being. This was his natural element. “I wonder if they’re a unique species or a strain evolved from a known species?”

“Do they have eyes?” Syed asked. “Or blind, like the cave fish we know?”

“Again, hard to tell from here. But they have bioluminescence, you can see the glow of it along their lateral lines, and around the face. Makes me think they have at least a rudimentary eye.”

“Do you think they eat this plant or anemone or whatever it is?”

Aston pursed his lips. “Maybe. There is some particulate matter in the water too. We need a closer look at all of this, and samples.” He dragged his bag over with a grin. “I’m going in.”

Syed watched him for a moment, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth, then she pulled over her own bag. “I’ll collect water samples and whatever else I can reach from the edge. Let me know if you need help.”

“Sure.”

Aston pulled off his shoes and clothes, keeping on only his underwear, and put his things in a small pile beside the large pool. Appearing unmindful of the stares from Slater and Syed, though secretly enjoying the fact that both were taking a good, long look, he pulled on his wetsuit and fins, then pulled a mask and snorkel from the bag. He strapped a dive light to his wrist and turned it on, then turned to sit on the edge of the pool and hung his legs into the water. The wetsuit seemed superfluous, the water was so warm, but it added the comfort of protection beyond simple temperature. He’d worn chainmail underwater before, against sharks, though doubted he’d need anything like that in this circumstance. Then flashes in his mind of blood on the rock, the missing cameraman, the metallic blue fidget spinner. Could there be danger down there? He pushed the concerns aside and slipped into the water. He’d go slowly and stay alert.

The warmth of the pool enveloped him. Knotted muscles began to loosen. He was at home here beneath the surface.

He swam across toward the far side, looking down into the shimmering, clear pool. The green glow in the cavern was so bright now that it illuminated the water to considerable depths, assisted by his dive light. He saw more tiny signs of life, crustaceans glowing the same ubiquitous green, curling and twisting in the beam from his wrist. The plant or anemone thing he and Syed had seen from the edge grew everywhere, deep past where shadow obscured his vision. He still couldn’t decide if it were vegetable or animal. He’d dive for a sample on the way back. Then something else caught his eye.

He turned in the water, shifted to better shine his light. Down deep he saw a distinct right angle of dark stone. Drawing a breath, he dived and kicked down. A small dome of rock, like a miniature hill, rose from the murky depths of the pool, and set into one side of it was a doorway. The frame was dark like the one they had encountered before, and carved with similar disquieting designs. But while it was similar to the one in the first cavern, this doorway looked exactly like the one he and Slater had seen under Lake Kaarme. A perfect rectangle, made from carved blocks of stone set into the rock. Around three meters high, nearly two wide, a man-made piece of engineering, leading away into pitch blackness, no actual door filling it. He had the same thought he had entertained back in Finland, a seeming lifetime ago. Man-made or something-made. Something with the intelligence and skills and tools to construct a portal like this, deep beneath the water in the middle of the most isolated place on Earth. His lungs burned and he kicked back up to the surface, blew the water from his snorkel and sucked in fresh air.

He floated on the surface for a while, breathing deeply, staring down at the impossible rectangle. He had to know more. Drawing and holding a deep breath, he kicked down again. His ears popped as he went, reaching for the top of the huge doorway. He could hold his breath a long time, having had a lot of practice in his chosen career, but he wished he had a SCUBA tank and plenty of time to explore. He would have a quick look, then insist on returning for a tank once he’d learned a little more.

He pulled himself down and into the stygian passageway beyond the doorframe. His dive light showed him a rocky tunnel going a few yards forward then curving up. He estimated he had about a minute to explore before the need for air became desperate, and pushed on. He swam a short way and saw the unmistakable rippling of light on the water’s surface. He frowned. There was no way he could be back at the surface now, he had to be a good twenty feet under at least, probably more. But he pushed up and his head broke through into fresh, cool air. Around him was another cavern, much smaller than the one he had dived from, but large nonetheless. More of the glowing vines and crystal lit the space, making dark shadows where the rock creased away. Stalagmites and stalactites filled the cave, making a strange forest, reflecting the light of the greenium.

Aston stared around himself, stunned and confused. He looked back over his shoulder and the rippling surface of the pool he had emerged into. Every sense of direction he possessed insisted the level of this pool had to be well below the surface of the large pool in the huge cavern above. Why didn’t this pool and cave flood, draining the one in the cavern he had come from? It had to be some strange property of trapped air or pressure. Or something.

“Who are you kidding, Sam,” he said quietly to himself. There was nothing natural about any of this. The others needed to know.

He sucked in a deep breath and dived back, through the short passage and out the large doorway, then kicked up to the surface shimmering with green light above. He burst up and shook water from his hair and face, about to call out to the team and tell them the impossible news, but the words died in his throat. Everyone was gathered on the far side of the huge cavern and they were all clearly upset.