Chapter 47

47

May 14, 5:17 P . M . ANAT

East Siberian Sea

Jason covered his mouth, trying not to gag. "What's that smell?"

He hurried after the others, who had continued farther down the side tunnel by now. Jason had stopped to check his camera. After leaving the lodestone chamber, the device had started working again. Best of all, the exposure hadn't damaged the videos he had already recorded.

Can't lose any of this .

Chasing after the others, Jason started filming the tunnel's walls. Their surfaces were inscribed with a gnarled entanglement of thorny vines, pendulant leaves, and crested flowerheads. It was like traveling through a petrified garden, one grown by Medusa herself. While recording, he had to be careful not to brush against the walls. Those thorny barbs snatched at his clothing. Some of the spikes extended a foot out, as if warding against trespassers.

As Jason finally caught up with the others, the stench grew worse. It made his eyes water, more than the sulfur of the boiling pit. He wasn't the only one suffering.

"It smells like rotting meat down this way," Anna said. "Like something died under a hot sun."

Elle called from the front of the group, where she strode alongside Gray and Seichan. "Maybe it's this scent that spooked Marco and Tucker. It's definitely making me want to turn back."

Jason knew that wasn't true. After entering this tunnel, the botanist had set a fast pace, one that had nothing to do with their short timetable, and all to do with her curiosity about the Hyperborean garden.

Ahead, the brightness that Seichan had first noted continued to grow. It was far from blinding, but it was enough for them to continue without their flashlights.

As they reached the tunnel's end, gasps rose from those up front. Jason tried to get a look, but the others blocked his view. Finally, Omryn retreated back, stumbling clear so Jason could push forward.

The Chukchi crewman muttered a single word in his native tongue. " Kelet... "

Jason remembered what that meant. It was a name for what shared this island with his people's sea gods.

Kelet .

Evil spirits.

Jason drew alongside everyone else. They were lined across an apron of rock at the edge of a cavernous chamber, easily the size of a football stadium, only the domed ceiling was suffocatingly low, draped with stalactites of limestone. The roof was also riddled with cracks, as if a god's hammer had struck it. The hundreds of gaps shone with sunlight, but there would be no escape that way, not even if they had a ladder that could reach that high. The top was sealed over by the surface ice, but a translucent glow still seeped through, illuminating the garden below. A few of the higher cracks, though, appeared open to the air, showing azure skies.

"Careful," Gray warned him.

Jason looked down and backed a step.

The apron of rock was more like a beach, sloping a few meters and disappearing into a silty, bubbling bog. Pockets burst with beachball-size belches of gas. Hot mud simmered and churned everywhere. A few islands of rock rose higher, but they were unreachable without asbestos waders.

Still, all this paled to what lay out there. Across the steaming floor, waist-high growths rustled gently, as if stirred by unseen winds. The plants were clustered in stands or spread across muddy fields. Leafy fronds shivered, curling at their edges, as if urging them closer.

"The garden," Elle gasped. "It's still here?"

Jason gaped at the palm-size lobes, frilled by long cilia that waved seductively. Spiked stalks lifted those fleshy appendages high, making a mockery of true flowers.

"How could they have survived?" Gray asked.

Elle tried to answer. "I think they're coming out of a dormancy period. With the spring. Some of the plants out there, those getting less light, look yellowed and drooped, likely still dormant."

"What do you mean by dormant?" Anna asked.

Elle explained, "In the Arctic, mosses and other plants, even insects—bees, ants, spiders, some caterpillars—will freeze solid, only to revive in the springtime. Whereas this species, while kept warm down here, they likely go dormant during the winter when there is no light for months."

Anna searched higher. "So the returning sunlight stirs them back to life?"

"Or the freshening of their food source." Elle waved to a swirling cloud of gnats and buzzing flies. "The Arctic, even here on the ice cap, is not a lifeless void. In fact, it's notoriously buggy. Just try walking through the Alaskan tundra. The mosquitoes alone will suck you dry. Out on the ice cap, decaying algae, rotted fish, and the bodies of dead seals, walruses, birds, even polar bears, all attract hordes of ravenous insects."

"Is that what we're smelling?" Harper asked. "Dead animals?"

"Yes and no," Elle answered. "It's the sarkophágos themselves that are giving off that scent, wafting it through the cracks up there, using the reek of decaying carcasses to attract their insect prey."

"But how can they survive in all that scalding mud?" Jason asked. "I'm sweating even standing this close."

"Their stalks must have some crystalline protection. Incorporating silicates or carbonates. I wager the sarkophágos get additional sustenance from that mud, too, as it constantly refreshes this cavern, rising up from down deep. Maybe the species even incorporates photosynthesis during the summer months."

"Still, that's not all that feeds them," Seichan interjected, as she pointed to one of the hillocks of rock.

Jason shifted a step to get a better look. He wished he hadn't. And it wasn't just that one spot. As if washed up onto distant shores, bones accumulated along the edges of those islands like driftwood, all covered in a sulfurous silt blending with the rock. He recognized the horned skulls of caribou and muskox. The tusked remains of a walrus. There were also human skulls, many dozens if not hundreds. Along with cages of ribs, long femurs, chains of vertebrae.

"Clearly those big animals didn't venture down here on their own," Seichan said.

Even Elle looked stricken. "The caretakers must have been feeding their garden, too."

"What about the bodies back at the camp?" Harper asked. "The dried growths sprouting from those mummies looked a lot like what's planted here."

"Maybe that's the danger everyone warned about," Elle said, looking worried now. "Maybe their spores can be contaminating, spreading seeds into fertile soil."

"Into us?" Anna asked.

"Possibly any warm flesh. But I don't see any germinating bodies at the moment. Maybe only at certain times of the year does the species become dangerous. Such an action might serve to spread the species, utilizing a host to carry those germinating spores to other lands."

"If so, no wonder it was deemed hazardous," Gray said. "If this escaped and spread..."

"It would be the very definition of invasive in invasive species ."

"And the men back in that camp?" Harper pressed.

"While their flesh might have fed that early growth, without sunlight, without access to insects and other nutrients, the rest eventually withered away."

Seichan turned from the sight. "We should get back up. We've wasted enough time. There is no way out this way."

Elle hung back. "We're still missing something."

She motioned to a pair of copper boats to the left that Jason had not even noticed. There were also a bunch of corked water jugs and sets of thick leather clothing draped over a copper rack, including little caps.

Jason realized the outfits matched what the tiny figures had worn in the plant-extraction diorama.

Elle waved over at the collection of gear. "Clearly the Hyperboreans harvested this field to concoct their medicinals. They must've found a way to live in harmony with this species."

"It's something we can explore later." Gray waved for her to follow. "First, the world needs to know about this place. About the wonders and dangers hidden down here."

She nodded and turned away with clear reluctance.

Jason remembered the duty assigned to him. He lifted his camcorder and edged down the bank, dropping to a knee. He studied the digital viewfinder as he scanned over the fetid field. He zoomed in on the closest plant, a yard or so away. He filmed its shivering movement, its lolling fleshy lobe.

Gray scolded him, "That's enough. Let's—"

The catch in the commander's voice was the only warning.

Through the viewfinder, he captured a snap of movement. A vine shot out, like a striking snake. It hit Jason under the angle of his jaw as he jerked back. Something stabbed deep—it felt like the sting of the largest murder hornet.

He fell back as the vine dropped to the stone. It writhed for a moment, then slowly retracted toward the plant. It left a crimson oily trail across the stone, dribbling from its thorny tip.

Jason scooted back on his butt. "What the hell?"

Gray helped him stand.

"Thanks. I can manage on—"

Pain lanced through him, so agonizing he couldn't find the breath to scream. He opened his mouth. Then the fire spread throughout his body. He collapsed into Gray's arms. His limbs tremored uncontrollably. His breathing gasped in convulsive gulps, then he lost all strength.

He waited to black out, prayed to do so.

But the fire remained, just no control.

He felt his body being lifted. Through unblinking eyes, he watched Gray rush him down the corridor. He heard Harper, but her words were a panicked jumble of medical jargon.

"... hemotoxin... neurotoxin... paralytic..."

Elle added her own assessment, one even worse. " Infected... "

Then they were back in the chamber with the mudpot. Before Gray could head toward the main tunnel, loud blasts echoed.

Jason recognized that unique concussion.

Seichan confirmed it. "Grenades."

"We're under attack." Gray shoved Jason into another's arm. "Omryn, guard over everyone. Keep them here. Harper, Elle, Anna. See what you can do to stabilize Jason."

With his head lolled crookedly, Jason watched Gray and Seichan race away.

Through the agony, he screamed, if only in his skull.

I'm still here...