Beneath the Dark Ice

to be any different. They look like they had a rich mythology, filled with demons and gods of the netherworld. The only difference was, their monsters turned out to be real. They were offering up their slaves to Qwotoan to appease him. I’d say they came across each other when they were excavating their basements and regarded him as the ruler of the underworld — their very own devil made flesh.”

Matt read from the wall. “OK, here we go ‘Those who join with Qwotoan shall live with him forever and shall return as his servants.’ I think we’ve seen what this refers to through the ability the creature has to mimic things it has devoured.” Matt moved a bit further around the walls. “To keep him in check they tried to appease him with monthly offerings, but he became ever more demanding. That’s the problem with some gods; they’re never satisfied with just one virgin, are they?”

“Not funny, Matt, it’s horrible.” Monica hugged herself at the thought of being tied to one of the stone columns while giant tentacles came through the open doorway.

Matt reached out to touch her arm. “To us, yes. But to the Aztlan culture who saw the world as being upside down and this creature as being a god, definitely not. Heaven was below ground in an underworld of caves, guarded by fantastic beasts and gods. The caves themselves were very holy and would have been considered to be a portal of communication with their deities. I guess to them it was proof of their beliefs when they encountered this fantastic creature reaching up from the depths. It would have been a great honour to be chosen to ‘join’ with him. For all we know they may have volunteered.”

“They didn’t realise that they were creating a feeding pattern. To the orthocones they were just an easy and abundant food source.” Aimee was examining the stains on the pillars.

Monica, Alex and Aimee sat down with their backs against one of the walls and followed Matt with their torch beams to give him extra light. They drank sparingly of the little remaining water, and finished the last dusty crumbs of their dark chocolate. Nothing had ever tasted so good.

“Look!” Matt pointed to some rings embedded up on the walls and a similar one high up on the giant stone door they had recently come through. “I bet they had some form of system rigged up so they could open and shut this door from up there, probably from behind the other broken door. They lashed their sacrificial victims to the pillars and then retreated behind their own door so they could open the gateway to the underworld in safety.”

Monica brought her torch beam back down to the crude half-built wall at the base of the ramp. “They were going to seal it off but never finished. Hmm, wonder why?” Monica posed the question and then answered it herself. “Oh, shit. It must have found another way in.”

Alex pushed his hands up through his hair and expelled a long breath between his teeth. The implications of this were horrifying — they could be ambushed and now there was no going back. Best not to have them dwelling too much on it. “Perhaps. But even if that were true it was a long time ago. We’re not home just yet, but we’ll make it now.”

“I agree with Alex. There haven’t been people here for thousands and thousands of years. This would have disrupted the normal feeding patterns of the creatures and I doubt they could remember how to get into the city after all those centuries.” Aimee was doing her best to support Alex and offer some good news to the exhausted group.

“But you said it yourself. We don’t know how long these things live. What if it’s the same creature or what if they have the ability to pass on their memories like, like…” Monica was trying to remember some Discovery Channel nature program she had seen in another life, when Aimee assisted.

“Flatworms.”

“That’s them. Could it remember, Aimee?”

“We just don’t know. We don’t know how long today’s giant cephalopods live, let alone a creature that should have been extinct four hundred million years ago and may have caused the collapse of the first great human civilisation. However, I doubt very much it could live for tens of thousands of years. But the problem we have down here is that this is a very different world to ours with unique environmental effects resulting in very different natural laws. Could it find a way in? Sure, given enough time; it’s certainly smart enough. Could it remember a way in? I just don’t know, but there are studies now on cellular inherited memory where transplant patients are recollecting tastes, smells and even images from the donor. I’ve read papers on memory inheritance that…” Aimee stopped talking. She had forgotten herself; the look on Monica’s face told her the information wasn’t helping.

Alex noticed that Aimee had omitted to share her theories with Monica about the image of the girl and baby in the old-fashioned clothing. He got to his feet and walked back towards the giant stone doors. He removed his glove and placed his hand flat on the polished red stone. He felt for vibrations and more; he felt for the leviathan’s presence — there was nothing. Aimee approached softly behind him and spoke quietly when she was close.

“Sorry, I don’t think I was making things better back there.”

“Don’t worry about it; we’re all exhausted. But I’ll tell you one thing. I have no intention of donating my organs to this thing.”

“Ha, is that what they call battlefield humour, Captain Hunter?” After all they had been through Aimee still managed to laugh gently at their predicament. Alex couldn’t help resting his eyes on her beautiful upturned face, now dusty and streaked by the tracks of perspiration and tears. She made him feel at ease and comfortable; he liked that.

“So, Dr. Aimee Weir, how does a sensible, modern woman like you end up a paleobiologist working for the government?”

Aimee rested her back against the red granite and tilted her head up towards the dark domed ceiling. “Well, my father always said people with brains will rise to the top — boy, I’m glad he can’t see me now, miles below the surface of the world. Fact is, I’m a science nerd. While all my friends were going to the beach to lie on the sand and improve their tans or rub lotion on their boyfriends’ backs, I was over in the rock pools turning over stones to look at the tiny creatures. My grades were always good and after sailing through chemistry and biology, I got hooked on solving the world’s energy problems by creating a biological synthetic fuel. Except I didn’t know I was working for the U.S. Army until a week ago. Not sure it would have mattered; sure doesn’t now. Now it seems such a small issue, as if it belongs to someone else while we’re all hiding down here in the dark.”

She smiled at Alex and moved a little closer. He noticed the set of her jaw was still strong. She’s a brave woman, he thought. A strand of her hair had fallen out from under her helmet and hung across one of her blue eyes. He wanted to reach out and push it back behind her ear but stopped himself. His eyes saddened as he thought, she can never know me.

“We better start climbing again, we’re nearly home.” Alex walked away.

They climbed the ramp to the upper doorway, the silence broken only by their soft footfalls. Dust gently floated in the beam of their lights, making the rays stand out like wide lasers in the pitch darkness.

Aimee shivered — it was much colder here. “Look.” She exhaled and her breath created a small fog in the light beam. “We must be closer to the surface now.”

Alex pulled his stratigraphic sonar from his backpack and pointed it at the roof. After a few seconds the small screen lit up with the readings he was seeking. “Still says we’re about a mile down, but I can’t tell how deep we are in the catacombs, how much is rock or how much of that is ice.”

Matt turned back to the group after reading the carved glyphs in the wall. “Could be a problem — the Aztlans seem to be similar to the Olmecs or Aztecs, who made extensive use of caves. Some of their artifacts and burials have been located many miles deep inside cave systems. My guess is they had been exploring and excavating the underground cave system for hundreds of years. They were obviously adept at stone cutting, so could easily have dug down many levels, perhaps miles. They could also have found the cave system and simply modified it for their use, which means this could be very deep indeed.”

Aimee picked up the conversation. “Either an earth tremor opened the caves to the lake below, or they simply broke through on one of their daily digs. We know the creatures below are hunt-adapted for either full darkness and near dark environments, so vibrations from the digging would have been very attractive to them. They would have broken through and come face to face with one of their gods.”

“Man, I’d pay a dollar to see the look on the face of that first guy.” Matt laughed at his own joke and Monica couldn’t help giggling as well; she elbowed him good-naturedly in the ribs.

From the doorway behind them came the sound of small rocks falling. The group froze and for a few seconds stood like statues, all focused on the large entrance they had only just come through.

“Probably just some of the debris settling,” Monica said.