Whyborne
“Do you think there’s anything left of the city?” Turner asked.
We’d retreated to the saloon for celebratory drinks. Jack and Griffin vanished briefly, returning laden with dinner from the restaurant. We sat around one of the gambling tables, dining on hot soup and generous pours of whiskey. I rather wished Turner had brought out wine instead, as his signage claimed he stocked it. Then again, given the remoteness of the location, its vintage was probably rather suspect.
“Impossible to say,” Christine replied. “Glaciers grind away everything in their paths, or so I understand. If the city is indeed in the pass, there may be little left to excavate.”
“But if part of the city was underground, it might still be intact,” I suggested.
“Let us hope so.” Christine took a swallow of her whiskey. “Even if only fragments remain, they would be of immeasurable importance. But intact buildings...”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Turner said. “We can leave tomorrow, establish a base camp, and search for any glacial caves or moulins, which might let us get a look at beneath the ice.”
Christine grinned and clinked her glass against his. “I like the way you think, Mr. Turner.”
Scarrow cleared his throat slightly. “I don’t wish to intrude, Dr. Putnam, but I would like to be included on your expedition if at all possible.”
She frowned. “I think you can pray for us just as well from here, Reverend.”
“Ah, but I have more to offer than prayer, as powerful as it is,” Scarrow replied. “I know a bit of mountaineering and the attendant dangers.”
Wonderful—even the local man of the cloth had more experience when it came to surviving the wilderness than me.
“If you intend to scale the glacier looking for this wonderful city,” Scarrow went on, “having someone on hand to set bones and stem bleeding could prove a matter of life and death, should ill luck befall you.”
“The reverend has a point,” Griffin said carefully.
“The museum didn’t provide a stipend for a doctor,” Christine said.
“Nor do I require one.” Scarrow smiled. “Lest you think me entirely motivated by charity, allow me to remind you of my interest in archaeology. I have some understanding what this discovery could mean. I’d like to be a part of such a momentous occasion, even if my role is a small one.”
“And your flock?”
“Can surely fend for themselves a few days. If they descend into idolatry and mayhem the moment my back is turned, clearly I’ve done a very poor job of shepherding them.”
Christine mulled it over for a long moment. “I’m in command of this expedition. As long as you’re comfortable taking orders from a woman and promise not to try and convert anyone, your skills will be welcome.”
“Of course.” Scarrow glanced at Iskander. “I take it, sir, you are a follower of Mohammed?”
“Church of England, actually,” Iskander replied a bit stiffly.
Scarrow laughed. “Ah, of course. Forgive me. I promise to do no more than pray—quietly—for the success of our expedition.”
“Then we have an accord.” Christine reached across the table and they shook hands on it. “For now, we’d best find our cabins.” She rose to her feet, and we all hastily followed suit. “There’s a great deal to do before we can depart tomorrow.”
“Indeed,” Griffin said, a bit stiffly. I cast him a curious glance, but he didn’t meet my gaze.
Griffin, Iskander, and I followed Christine out of the saloon. As soon as we were outside and away from prying ears, Griffin flung up his arms.
“You do recall why we’re here, don’t you?” he demanded in a low voice. “What about these seals and this umbra? We’re supposed to be saving the town, not haring off to study a glacier only three days before the solstice!”
“There didn’t seem to be anything magical about the stele,” I said. “I can look over it again if you would like, but I imagine I would have sensed any enchantment while I reconstructed the thing.”
“Perhaps the umbra is in the city,” Iskander suggested. “Was there a city associated with the Eltdown Shards, I wonder? And if so, had any trace been worn away, or was the information suppressed?”
“If the Endicotts were involved, probably the latter,” I said. “Which makes it all the more imperative to find this one as soon as possible.”
“And what if it isn’t simple to seal away?” Griffin persisted. “What if it turns out the entire site is best left untouched? Don’t you remember what Vanya said when he attacked you, Whyborne? You would ‘break open the mountain and release the great worm?’ What if he knew about the city on the mountain somehow?”
“How would he know anything about it?” I asked. “We didn’t until just now.”
“Jack said he was Russian creole. If the native side of his family came from one of the tribes in this area, perhaps they had legends, or even knew something we don’t.” Griffin frowned. “Blast, Jack’s original letter even said something about the natives avoiding the area.”
“This is the find of a lifetime!” Christine shouted. I gestured at her to keep her voice down. She shot me an angry look, but complied. “If Nephren-ka ensured my place in the annals of archaeological history, this...this would be an even greater accomplishment. It would change our basic understanding of human history! I’m not turning my back on it just because some maniac yelled at Whyborne about mountains and worms.”
“And the umbra?” Griffin pressed.
“What of it? We don’t even know what it is, Griffin, or where it might be. What the devil did you think I’d do, once you pointed out the similarity between the stele and the peaks? Sit here on my hands until something comes lumbering down off the mountain to eat us?”
Griffin sighed, steam writhing about his face in the icy air. “No. But we can’t let scientific zeal make us incautious.”
I pressed my lips together...but it would do no good to withhold the information, even if it would only add to the argument. “There’s something I should mention. The city shown on the stele...it reminds me a great deal of the one I saw in visions when the dweller in the deeps touched my mind.”
Griffin cursed, and even Iskander seemed taken aback. “Are you certain, old chap?” he asked. “That seems...rather unlikely.”
“I’m certainly not disagreeing.” My mind raced. “I’d always assumed the ketoi constructed the underwater city at the dweller’s direction. What if ancient humans built it, and it sank beneath the waves?”
“Like Atlantis?” Griffin asked sharply.
“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m no theosophist, searching for evidence of some so-called root race. Perhaps this prior civilization, whatever it was, had contact with the ketoi. For all we know, this arctic city might have been built by some group of hybrids who fled inland for reasons of their own.”
“Do you think there are any ketoi off the coast here?” Christine asked. “Around the Aleutian Islands, perhaps?”
“It’s possible,” I allowed. “And Ketoi—the island, that is—is part of the Kuril chain. It isn’t terribly far from the Aleutians, certainly not for creatures that can swim great distances underwater. Perhaps their name is in fact derived from the island, not the Greek ketus...”
Christine cleared her throat. “But that’s for another time,” I said hastily. “We can’t say anything for certain until—and unless—we find the city and get a closer look.”
“There you have it,” Christine said, as if I’d somehow made her point for her. “We can’t know anything until we examine the site closer. Assuming there’s even a site left after the action of the glacier.”
“I suppose,” Griffin allowed at last. We’d reached our cabin, and clustered about the door. “But let’s not lose sight of our original goal: to make certain this umbra, if it even still exists as you say, remains sealed away.”
“I’m honestly not entirely certain how we mean to do that,” Iskander said, looking at me. “I know we’ve talked of strengthening these seals somehow, but I haven’t heard the details.”
“The seals will be bound to an object of some kind,” I said. “Which unfortunately could be anything that would act as a container.”
“And you mean to reinforce them somehow?”
“Not precisely. That is, I could, if I knew either the exact spell cast originally, or if the sorcerer physically traced the—the shape of the spell, as it were, so I could see where to reinforce it. However, I’ve been studying how to cast such magics myself, so I should be able to lay a second spell over the first and strengthen it that way. Er, in theory.”
“Wonderful,” Griffin muttered.
“It will be fine,” Christine clapped Griffin encouragingly on the arm. “If it comes to it, you and I are hardly helpless against the otherworldly. Iskander comes from an entire line of monster hunters. And Whyborne is a monster himself.”
“Excuse me!” I exclaimed. “I don’t appreciate these slurs against my ancestry.”
She ignored me. “We’ll do whatever is necessary, Griffin. But the antiquity of this find...this isn’t some primitive remnant built by ancient hunters who crossed the land bridge from Asia. This is beyond anything dreamed of by science. And I intend to excavate it even if I have to fight off a dozen monsters with my bare hands.”