The Resurrection Key Read online

  ‘We will. But the ice is solid. I don’t think—’

  The Dutchman was abruptly cut off by a harsh caw of static. ‘Wim?’ said Bekker. ‘Wim, can you hear me? Wim!’ No answer. ‘Shit!’

  Havman marched to the helm. ‘I will bring the ship closer. If they are in trouble, we can reach them faster.’

  ‘Good, okay,’ Bekker replied, before trying the radio again.

  There was still no response.

  ‘Why did you let them go in?’ demanded Imka Joubert over the satellite link. The video quality was low and glitchy, the computers at each end straining to make the most of the parsimonious bandwidth.

  ‘I told them not to!’ said Bekker. Thirty minutes had passed since his last contact with the explorers; he had called his fiancée as much to vent about the situation as report on it. ‘This is what happens when you hire thrill-seekers – they go seeking thrills!’

  ‘When I hired them?’

  ‘Okay, when we hired them! But we lost contact when they went inside this thing, and still haven’t heard anything from them.’

  ‘What is this thing?’ Imka asked. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I don’t want to say on an open channel. Let’s call it an . . . old ship.’

  ‘What, like a sailing ship?’

  ‘I’ll tell you more when I can set up an encrypted link.’

  A disbelieving laugh. ‘You really think anyone is eavesdropping?’

  ‘I don’t want to take any chances. Trust me, Imka.’

  ‘I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t have let you go down to the bottom of the world, would I?’

  He chuckled. ‘You want to swap places? You’re the one who knows all about ships . . .’

  ‘I’m fine here, thanks. Did I mention it’s twenty-two Celsius today?’

  ‘No, and I wish you hadn’t. But the Dionysius isn’t equipped for salvage work, so we’d have to—’

  He stopped at a sudden rasp from the radio. Havman snatched it up. ‘Hello, hello!’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

  An ear-shredding screech of static – then a voice pierced the distortion. ‘Het heeft haar gedood! Het heeft haar gedood! Mijn God, help me!’

  ‘It’s Wim!’ said Bekker, jumping up in alarm. His native Afrikaans was very similar to Dutch, and he knew exactly what Stapper was saying: It killed her! It killed her! My God, help me! ‘Wim, what happened? What killed her – what happened to Sanna?’

  The crew reacted in shock.

  ‘Help me! Help!’ came the panicked reply. ‘Oh God, it’s coming after me!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘De demon! Sanna woke it up! It—’

  Stapper’s words were cut off, not by static but a loud thump, followed by banging sounds. He had slipped, skidding down an icy slope – then came a pained shout as he hit something. But it was not the only shout. In the background was another voice, with a strange, throaty echo to it that barely sounded human.

  Then the channel fell silent.

  ‘Wim!’ yelled Bekker. ‘Wim, can you hear me? Wim!’ He turned to Havman. ‘We’ve got to help him! We need to get into the cave. If you launch the lifeboat—’

  ‘Are you mad?’ said the Swede. ‘There’s a murderer running around!’ He hesitated, then with clear trepidation issued orders to the crew. ‘We’ll take the whole ship inside,’ he told Bekker. ‘We’ll be protected while we look for him.’

  The Dionysius’s engines came to life. Bekker stared fearfully at the shadowy cave mouth, then belatedly realised that someone was calling his name. ‘Arnold! Arnold, what’s going on?’ said Imka over the satellite link.

  ‘Imka, something’s happened,’ he replied. ‘Wim and Sanna are in trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble? What—’

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll call you back as soon as we’ve found them. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. But—’

  He ended the call and rushed to the windows. The ship quickly closed on the iceberg. Dull thunks echoed through the hull as the prow struck bobbing growlers. The entrance loomed ahead. ‘Will we fit?’

  ‘We’ll fit,’ said Havman grimly. ‘Try to get him on the radio.’

  Bekker called Stapper, to no avail. The captain slowed, bringing the Dionysius into line with the cave’s tall but relatively narrow mouth. The South African watched – then suddenly remembered something. ‘He said “it” . . .’

  Havman didn’t divert his gaze from the icy passage. ‘What?’

  ‘Wim said “it” killed Sanna, not “he”.’

  ‘He was panicking. People say the wrong words when they panic.’

  ‘But he said it several times. “It” killed her, “it” was coming after him. And there was something else. He called it “de demon” . . . the demon.’

  The temperature on the bridge seemed to drop as its occupants exchanged worried looks. Havman was the first to speak, standing straight and resolute. ‘It doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that we rescue him.’ He eased the Dionysius into the gap.

  Bekker tensed, but Havman guided the ship cleanly through the cave mouth. The change in lighting from the stark whites and blues outside to sapphire-tinted gloom rendered him momentarily blind; he blinked, trying to take in his new surroundings as the four-hundred-tonne survey vessel slipped into the mysterious cave.

  Shadows swallowed it.

  ‘There! I see something, five degrees to port!’

  Ulus Cansel, captain of the freighter Fortune Mist, stared intently through his binoculars. The ship had been halfway through its voyage between New Zealand and Cape Town with a cargo of frozen lamb when it received a weak distress call. A nine-hour diversion at full speed had brought it to the source, but now the signal, from the RV Dionysius, had fallen silent. Cansel had been a mariner for almost thirty years; he knew all too well that that was a bad sign. The Dionysius had almost certainly sunk.

  But that didn’t mean there weren’t survivors. A spot of colour against the grey sea had caught his eye: a man in a red coat, huddled on a chunk of floating ice. ‘Man overboard! Mr Figueroa, Mr Krämer, launch a lifeboat.’ The crewmen hurried from the bridge.

  The Cypriot surveyed the surrounding waters. There was a large iceberg a few kilometres distant. The glossy sheen of raw, snow-free ice over much of its surface told him it had recently rolled; had the Dionysius been crushed by it?

  He wouldn’t know until they completed a wider search, but the priority was recovering the survivor. An order, and the Fortune Mist’s horn sounded. At first the figure didn’t move, leading Cansel to fear he was dead, but then he shifted slightly. ‘He’s still alive!’ the captain called out. ‘Get him aboard, quick!’

  The lifeboat reached the floating ice.

  Jakob Krämer regarded the stranded man warily. The floe was only small, and the lean German was sure it would pitch over if he climbed onto it. ‘Hey! Can you hear me?’ he shouted in English.

  No response. He asked the same in his native language, but the man remained still. ‘Hold us steady,’ he told Figueroa. ‘I’ll pull him closer.’

  He manoeuvred a boat hook to snag the man’s coat. Straining, he pulled him across the ice until he was almost within reach. The floe rocked, bumping the lifeboat. Krämer cursed, then stretched out as far as he dared. His gloved fingers caught fabric; he clutched it tightly and hauled the unconscious man to the boat’s side.

  The ice tipped again, sending a freezing splash over the man’s legs. He flinched, but his rescuer now had a firm hold. Figueroa joined in, and they brought the limp figure aboard.

  Krämer examined him. The man was young, his face pale from the cold. If he had spent much longer exposed to the elements, he would be dead. ‘Get us back to the ship, fast,’ the German said. Figueroa returned to the outboard and brought the boat around. ‘We got you,’ Krämer said, trying
to reassure the survivor. ‘You are safe.’

  The man’s eyes snapped open. The sailor felt a sudden unease; he was looking through rather than at him, the gaze almost manic in its terrified intensity. ‘Demon . . .’

  Krämer blinked at the feeble whisper. ‘What?’

  ‘Demon . . .’ the man in red repeated. His accent sounded Dutch. ‘In the ice. Sanna woke it . . . it killed her! We took the key. We took the key!’

  Krämer realised his passenger was clutching something tightly to his chest. He looked more closely – and saw a glint of metal.

  Gold.

  ‘We woke the demon,’ the young man went on. His breathing quickened. ‘It killed Sanna – killed everyone!’

  Krämer was more interested in what he held than his words. Demons? His near-death had obviously driven him mad. He shifted to block Figueroa’s line of sight with his body, then started to prise the man’s fingers open.

  ‘No, no!’ gasped the Dutchman. ‘The key – don’t give it the key!’

  ‘We will be at the ship soon,’ said Krämer loudly, trying to drown out his voice. He finally forced the young man’s hands apart and tugged the object free. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘No!’ he cried again. ‘They killed, they . . .’ He slumped in exhaustion.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Krämer said again, giving Figueroa a surreptitious glance before examining his prize.

  What it was, he had no idea. It certainly didn’t look like a key. A plate-sized metal disc, its central hub inlaid with a circle of polished purple stone, into which was set a large crystal. At first he had thought the object was gold, but now he saw it wasn’t quite the right colour, with a distinctly reddish tinge. Writing was inscribed in its surface, but he didn’t recognise the language.

  He turned it over. Both the stone and the crystal continued all the way through its centre. More unknown words ran around them.

  One symbol was unmistakable, though.

  A skull.

  It faced to the left, jaw open as if shouting. It was oddly deformed, the back of the head elongated. Something about it unsettled Krämer. Maybe the survivor’s ravings about demons had got to him . . .

  He shook off the thought and hid the object inside his coat. Even if the gold wasn’t pure, its weight told him it was still worth a lot of money. And the only other person who knew about it was a madman, in shock from his ordeal. He wouldn’t be believed. No, you didn’t have anything when we found you. You must have lost it in the water. Sorry.

  The German pulled his zipper back up. He felt no guilt about what he had just done: the man was still alive, wasn’t he? That was worth more than any piece of treasure. And it gave Krämer the chance to escape from the drudgery of life aboard a freighter. He knew of places online where such salvage could be sold, with no awkward questions asked. A few months from now, his life could change for ever.

  He smiled at the thought – then looked down in alarm as the man stirred. ‘We’re at the ship,’ he said hastily. ‘You’re safe.’

  ‘No, not . . . safe,’ came the weak reply. ‘More demons. Sleeping in . . . the ice.’ His hands searched for the object with growing desperation. ‘The key! Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied the German. ‘You must have lost it in the water.’

  ‘No, I had it! Listen!’ He suddenly clawed at Krämer’s coat, pulling the startled crewman closer. ‘The key – it wakes them. Sanna woke one. It . . . it killed her, killed everyone on the ship! If they wake, they’ll kill us all!’ His voice rose to a shout. ‘The demons will kill us all!’

  1

  New York City

  Four months later

  Professor Nina Wilde paused for dramatic effect as she regarded her students, then spoke. ‘My first rule of archaeology: no find is worth risking your, or anyone else’s, life over.’

  That aroused surprise from her audience. ‘Yes, I know that may sound weird, from someone with my track record,’ she went on. ‘But I’m speaking from experience – very, very painful experience. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve almost been killed out in the field, and a couple of times in my own home. But I’ve forced myself to keep a very good count of the people who actually were killed because of my discoveries. And it’s too many. Which is why I’m talking to you in a lecture hall rather than chasing around the world after legends.’

  ‘But you’ve found so many,’ said a young woman. This early in their first semester, Nina hadn’t yet memorised all her students’ names. Madison?

  ‘Yes, I have – but I wanted to leave some for you to find as well.’ Some laughter at the joke, which was a relief. It was only the redhead’s second year in her academic role, and she still found balancing research and teaching hard. ‘I hope I’ll inspire you to make your own discoveries. But I also want you to learn from my mistakes.’

  ‘What mistakes?’ asked a man – a boy; God, they were all so young! – she was fairly sure was called Aiden.

  ‘I used to think it was my job, my duty, to bring lost wonders back to the world,’ Nina told him. ‘Which I did. Atlantis, the tomb of Hercules, El Dorado, Valhalla, the Ark of the Covenant . . . and more besides.’

  ‘It’s a very impressive list.’ She remembered this youth’s name: Hui Cheng, a student from China. Her concern that he had won admission to the university based solely on his wealthy parents’ bank balance had already been assuaged by his work, breadth of knowledge and drive.

  ‘Thank you. But it came at a price. It seems like every discovery I made had some madman, or occasionally madwoman, after it for nefarious ends. And I don’t just mean tomb raiding for money. I’ve faced people trying to start wars, take over countries, nuke cities . . .’

  ‘You didn’t talk about this in your books,’ said Aiden dubiously.

  ‘My books are about the actual archaeology. If you want explosions and gunfights and car chases, you can always watch the ridiculous movies based on them!’ More laughter. She let it subside, then continued, more sombrely: ‘But the antimatter explosion in the Persian Gulf three years ago? That was caused by something I found. When Big Ben in London collapsed? Again, caused by one of my discoveries. The religious cult gassed in the Caribbean, the skyscraper destroyed in Tokyo – all ultimately my responsibility.’

  ‘But you weren’t personally responsible,’ said Cheng. ‘The incident in Antigua, you’d been kidnapped! You didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been involved,’ Nina insisted. ‘My thought process at the time was: I can find these things, so I must find these things. I never considered whether I should find these things.’

  ‘So . . . you wish you hadn’t found them?’ Madison asked. ‘You think your whole career’s been a mistake?’

  ‘No, but I think I’ve made mistakes. The lesson they’ve taught me is actually my second rule: think before you dig. Before you put the tip of your trowel into the ground, ask yourself some very big questions. Am I the right person to make this discovery? Am I doing so for the right reasons? And most of all, do I have the ability to protect this discovery? If you can’t truthfully answer yes to all three, then you should hold off. Always remember that your actions will make you a part of history too – and you want it to look favourably upon you.’ She cast her gaze across her students, one by one. ‘What I’ve come to realise is that you need great wisdom to know if you should return an ancient wonder to the world. Even after everything I’ve experienced, I’m still not sure I have that wisdom.’ A pause, then, with dark humour: ‘And I’m damn sure none of you do.’

  She knew that would not go down well. Most of the young men and women limited their affronted responses to facial expressions, unwilling to challenge a professor, but there were inevitably a few vocal objections. ‘I don’t think that’s fair,’ said Aiden. ‘You don’t know us.’

  ‘No,’ Nina replied, ‘not as individ
uals, but I’m forty-five, and by now I know people. You’re all, what? Eighteen, nineteen, twenty? That’s an age where in many ways I envy you – the whole world’s just opened up, and you can do anything. You can even bend down without your back hurting! Damn, I miss those days.’

  The humour helped ease the tension. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘while you’ve got limitless energy and enthusiasm, you don’t have experience. And I can tell you, ironically enough from experience, that when you’re young, if someone tries to give you the benefit of their experience, you’re all like “yeah, whatever, grandma”. I was the same! And unfortunately, that got me into trouble – trouble that affected other people. If I’d realised what I was getting into, I would have done things differently. Or possibly not at all.’

  ‘But then everything you’ve discovered would have remained lost,’ said Cheng. ‘Our knowledge of ancient history would be incomplete. It would be wrong.’

  ‘It would, yes. But that goes back to my first rule – is that knowledge worth the lives lost to uncover it? All of you, take a look at each other.’ Nina waited for them to do so. ‘Now, if you thought you were on the verge of making an amazing discovery, but you knew that in doing so you’d be directly responsible for the deaths of some of your classmates . . . would you still do it?’

  The question aroused discussion. Cheng was first to reply. ‘But that’s a flawed premise, Professor.’

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘Is it now?’

  ‘It assumes we have accurate foreknowledge of the future, which we don’t. You can only make decisions based on the information you have at the time. We can’t know that any of us will die.’

  ‘Experience helps you with risk assessment, though. Crossing the street? You’re probably safe. Going into a region of the Congo jungle controlled by warlords? Not so much. And that wasn’t a hypothetical. I did it – and it was a mistake, a terrible one. I hope none of you ever do the same.’

  The room fell silent for a moment. Again Cheng spoke first. ‘I have a hypothetical I’d like to put to you, Professor.’