Let’s hope we don’t run into any of those.
Especially because they were all on their own.
The solar storm continued to wreak havoc on long-range communications. The short reach of their radios had some degree of reception, but even that was spotty. The only positive news was that Byron believed the geomagnetic interference should start to wane in the next four or five hours. The navigator had stayed behind to try to shorten that time frame.
Jason hoped he was successful. He was anxious to reach Kat, to reconnect to the world. They needed to share this discovery, startspreading the word before the Russians learned of this place. And if there was a threat to the world hidden here, it needed to be identified and secured.
Anna spoke up front, glancing back at him, perhaps sensing his anxiety. “Do you think that central peak could truly be a mountain of pure lodestone, as Nicolas of Lynn claimed in his book?”
From his lap, Jason lifted a small compass given to him. The needle pointed at the spire of black rock. “I doubt it’s solid magnetite. More likely the outcropping has rich veins of the magnetic stone running through it.” He waved to encompass all the peaks. “This whole grouping might be the same. All part of a huge massif, a sea ridge with only these topmost tips cresting through the ice.”
Anna looked forward. “I wonder...”
Jason scooted closer. “What?”
“You could be right. According to the annotations that Mercator included with his map, theRupus Nigra et Altissima—this magnetic mountain—was thirty-three miles around. A measurement he likely gleaned from Nicolas’sInventio Fortunata.”
Support came from an unusual source. “Byron performed some preliminary measurements,” Kelly stated as they approached the outer ring of cliffs. “The circumference of the exposed outcroppings is roughly fifty kilometers—thirty-one miles.”
Anna sat straighter, looking back at Jason, her eyes shining as blue as the skies. She was clearly thrilled, but there was an edge of melancholy in her expression, the way her gaze seemed to stretch far beyond their vehicle’s confines.
She deflated with a sigh. “How I wish Igor were here to see this, to see history—what was inscribed in the ancient texts we both studied—come alive.”
Her words sobered Jason, reminding him that this discovery had come with a steep price. Not just her brother, but all the others who had fallen.
And more might, too, before this is over.
He took a deep breath as the Snowcat swept between two of the mist-shrouded peaks of the outer ring. As they entered the heart ofthis mysterious landscape, he swore he could feel the powerful energies buried here, the magnetic pull of this place.
Kelly cursed and jerked the vehicle hard, throwing Jason to the side. The Snowcat lifted off one tread before crashing back down.
As it did, Jason caught a glimpse of the obstacle that Kelly had sideswiped. It stuck out of the ice, but it wasn’t a rocky outcropping—it was a tall spar of wood, tangled by frosted ropes. Other oaken slabs, peppered with nails of black iron, lay embedded or buried around the pole.
“What was that?” Anna asked.
Jason answered. “I... I think it was the top of an old ship’s mast. Maybe the remains of a weathered crow’s nest.”
“There are others,” Kelly said, nodding ahead.
Across the ice, other poles of wood poked crookedly. Some had shattered. One still had an intact crossbar, as if it had been turned into a grave marker—which was surely the case.
Jason pictured the old sailing ships locked in ice under them.
“They must mark the remains of Catherine’s ships,” Anna said.
Jason stared across the frozen graveyard. “Clearly not all of them made it back.”
He swallowed hard, wondering if they’d suffer the same fate.
He looked toward the bulk of thePolar King, a crimson rampart in the distance. A chill of misgiving swept through him, as if he had stepped on his own grave.
Maybe Omryn was right.
No one should come looking for this place.
39
May 14, 1:27P.M. ANAT
