His attempt to lighten the mood failed.
The weight of the place—the history, the rock overhead—hushed the group into a wary silence. Sunlight still reached this deep, reflecting down the ramp behind them in a silvery-blue sheen. But ahead, where the chute dropped away, the world vanished into a Stygian darkness.
As they drew closer, Harper called to the group. “Oy! There are stairs over here!”
Gray turned. To the left of the waterfall, stone steps descended in a swooping arc, falling away into the shadows below.
“Same over there,” Jason called out, pointing to the far side of the icy fall.
Gray guided everyone toward the doctor’s side, wanting them off the ice as soon as possible. “Keep together.”
They reached the stairs without mishap and gathered along the steps, which appeared to have been chiseled out of the rock. Gray stared past the frozen waterfall. On its opposite side, a matching staircase arched along the wall on that side. The two sets of steps formed a grand U-shaped promenade.
“How deep does this go?” Tucker asked, leaning over the edge of the steps with his flashlight in hand.
“Stay back,” Gray warned. He turned to Anna. “Sister, you brought your flare gun, yes?”
Her eyes widened with understanding. “Of course.”
She withdrew the yellow gun from a belt holster and handed it over.
Gray checked it was loaded, then pointed its muzzle high, aiming for the cavern’s ceiling. He squeezed the trigger. A short bang launched a flare across the chamber. When it reached its apex, it burst into a blinding red sun. It hung in the air and slowly descended.
Despite Gray’s warning, they all moved closer to the edge of the stairs.
“My god...” Jason exclaimed.
“I don’t thinkyourgod has anything to do with this,” Tucker said.
Gray gaped at the wonders revealed in the firelight. Stone pyramids, much like those of Egypt, climbed high. Below them, a contiguous spread of homes and structures formed a multilevel jigsaw puzzle. Several spires poked higher, topped by a sculpted mix of Nordic animals—whales, mammoths, walruses, seals, reindeer, caribou, and muskoxen—as if each were a totem to a clan of these ancient people.
As he stared, Gray remembered what had been carved in ivory on the mammoth tusk hidden at the Golden Library.
This is what that ancient artisan was trying to depict.
Before the flare expired, Gray turned to Jason. “Start recordingallof this. We must bring this to the world. Show that this archaeological wonder belongs to all nations. Not just one.”
“Like on the other side of the world,” Tucker noted. “With Antarctica. A continent that by treaty belongs to no one.”
Gray nodded. “We must preserve thiscontinent, this lost Hyperborea, in the same manner. Before the Russians get here.”
“You mean before all hell breaks loose,” Tucker added.
3:39P.M.
Recognizing the danger and the closing window of time, Gray got them moving quicker down the steps. They needed to record as much as possible, to be ready to share it with the world if given the opportunity.
As they continued, Gray dispatched another flare, both to light their descent and to assist Jason in capturing the wonders below. This second flare also allowed them to get a better sense of the place’s breadth. They had been too overwhelmed the first time by the beauty and spectacle. They had failed to appreciate that this cavern, easily a half-mile across, was only one of many, all interconnected like the homes themselves.
It reminded Gray of the layout of the Golden Library, how it extended outward under the Ringing Tower across a series of rooms, forming a labyrinth. But the discoveries hidden here were far more ancient than any book found in a gold-plated chest.
Anna offered her own theory. “I think this place spreads out to those surrounding peaks, forming one great metropolis. These sea-faring people must have overwintered here, then ventured outward during warmer months.”
“Which would make this the Rome of the Arctic,” Jason added.
Anna smiled. “The old texts—of Greece and Rome—mention travelers, emissaries of Hyperborea who visited them. Such accounts were likely draped in mythological terms, by societies that could not comprehend the Far North or the sophistication of the people who had learned to survive here.”
Gray could not argue against this—all he could do was keep them moving.
