A button was hit.
The shutters remained down, but the louvres ratcheted wider.
Through the panoramic spread of the bow windows, a shocking sight revealed itself, dreadful in its power, stunning in its scope. Off in the distance, a fiery plume rolled into the sky. The fog banks fled to all sides, opening an ever-widening view, exposing that hellish heart.
Around that mushrooming cloud, ice shoved up into a huge wave, sweeping toward them and outward in all directions. At the top, its frozen crest shattered into massive, jagged pieces, becoming an icy gristmill, grinding across the top of the world.
“Maintain speed,” Kelly said, gulping out his words as that monster pursued them.
TheKingandLyakhovraced down the waterway.
But no one was fooled.
They would not escape the inevitable.
“Look!” Tucker called out, pointing directly across the bow.
The churning wave slowly lost some of its power, weakened by distance and the deepening water. Yet, not enough to keep it from reaching them.
Still, the channel that thePolar Kinghad forged through the ice was full of open water. Past the bow, the dark blue trough cut like a knife through the ever-expanding circumference of the blast-driven wave. As the swell approached, it ripped the channel wider ahead of them, piling and pulling ice away.
“Hang tight!” Kelly warned.
The wave struck. The water lifted the bow high, tilting the boat, then dropping it down the far slope. Walls of ice swept to either side, spinning and grinding past them. The noise of its passage was worse than the nuclear blast. It ate at Gray’s ears, accompanied by a mournful, deep-toned dissonance, like the death rattle of the world.
Then the surge was gone, rolling off into the distance, before eventually subsiding and sinking into the sea.
In its wake, the waters continued to rock. Ice bumped and scraped the hull.
Kelly radioed the other ship, checking on the state of theLyakhov, but it wasn’t necessary. A muffled cheering rose and echoed from the Russian ship. They had made it, too.
As the celebrations spread, Gray crossed to the bow windows with Seichan. She hooked an arm around his waist. They stared at the dark column that glowed at the heart of the fog-cleared skies. He pulled her closer, needing her warmth.
Together, they gazed at the fiery death of Hyperborea.
It was a reminder of a hard lesson.
Nothing lasts forever.
Not even legends.
57
July 24, 10:45A.M. SAST
Spitskop Game Park, South Africa
Tucker crossed the veranda of the colonial-era mansion. The three-story, sprawling home sat in a remote corner of the Spitskop Game Preserve, far from the tourist area of the park.
This was his home—as much as any place truly was.
Past the porch’s white-washed railing, wide swaths of lawn—composed of indigenous buffalo grass—rolled out for half an acre. Farther out, the larger twenty-acre parcel was dotted with barns and outbuildings. A neat gravel drive led to a packed-dirt road. There, a pristine sign stood, carved of native ironwood and painted in brilliant shades of orange, white, and black. The letters spelled out LUXURYSAFARITOURS.
He shared this business with the Nkomo brothers, old friends who ran the photo safari. Tucker came often to visit, to rest up. It was here he had recuperated with Kane last year, where he had first met Marco as a pup.
Presently, the Nkomo brothers were out of the country, rehabbing a spot in the Congo for their next venture. For the moment, Tucker had this place to himself—well,mostlyto himself.
He carried two tall bottles of cold beer, which already sweated in the morning swelter of the savannah. The sun glared off the grasslands, shadowed by stands of acacia trees. He stepped over to a pair of rattan rocking chairs, which stirred under the breeze of a large ceiling fan.
