In the Shadow of Falcon's Wings

CHAPTER 17 THE OUTPOST

After a while, Dodge recalled his mother’s advice about getting lost — stay in one place and let someone find you. It was sage advice in most conceivable crises since it assumed that there would be a rescue party, but Dodge had to wonder if it would work in this remote wilderness, where the only possible searchers were also lost. Still, in the absence of any better strategy, it was something to do.

When he realized it was impossible to actually remain in one place, he blindly lowered down until he felt something solid beneath his feet, but even in this he was confounded. The near constant winds pushed him across the icy landscape as easily as when he was aloft. Worse, the blizzard-like blasts came at him from all angles, shoving him back and forth like the ball in a bagatelle game. Even when it seemed that the wind had died, he could hear the ice scraping by underfoot. After a few minutes, he discovered that it was not the wind at, but something else entirely.

I’m being pulled.

It was like magnetic force; a steady irresistible pull that wasn’t as strong as the wind, but was nonetheless constant. A blast of air might knock him back a few yards, or spin him off at an angle, but immediately thereafter, he would resume moving in the original direction.

It’s the exoskeleton, he thought. It’s being attracted to… what?

He impulsively unbuckled the exoskeleton to test this hypothesis…

…and almost died.

His extremities instantly seized in place. The cold was so absolute that his breath was snatched away, and he could do nothing except lay in a fetal ball as his skin started to freeze.

The dark god watched as his minions carried the unconscious girl onto the flying disc. He did not know who she was, but her presence here was testimony enough that his enemies had gone on ahead to find his last redoubt, and find it they would. The original engineers of the place had implemented the simplest of devices to guide fellow travelers to what was otherwise an impossible to find location.

He barely remembered his own first encounter with the ice cave and nothing at all of what had gone before. His emergence from the frozen stronghold, equipped with the mysterious technology of a long-forgotten society, had been a rebirth. He could only surmise that, in the same figurative sense, he had died upon entering that place which was both tomb and womb.

That his enemies had come so far…that they might already have gained access to a place that he now thought of as his own possession…shook his confidence in a way that was completely alien. He was a god; this ought not to have happened.

He was loath to bring his men to the fortress; he guarded its secrets jealously, for indeed the place did not discriminate who benefited from the ancient knowledge and tools in its repository. But his foes might already have added some of those weapons to their arsenal, and he dared not face them alone. That too, was why he decided to bring the girl along.

He stroked his hooded chin thoughtfully as the hostage was laid to one side. Even her life might not be enough of a bargaining chip against these men, not if they got a taste of the power he had already mastered. If that happened, he would have no choice but to destroy the cave and seal his enemies away forever.

Of all his recent awakenings, this one was the worst. The warm glow radiating from his heart and spreading to his extremities was not a welcome heat to banish a chill but rather seemed more like the fires of Hell, searing every nerve without consuming his flesh. An involuntary wail crossed his lips, and in that instant he realized that he could no longer hear the roar of the wind.

Father Hobbs removed his hand from Dodge’s chest and sank back wearily on his haunches. Dodge writhed in agony as the feeling returned to his still chilled limbs, but his torment was ameliorated but the realization that he was no longer freezing to death in the blizzard. When the pins and needles no longer felt like red-hot spikes in his skin, he raised his head.

Hurricane was sitting alongside him as well, opposite the Padre. The big man was shaking his head in disbelief. “Boy, you’ve the Devil’s own luck. What possessed you to turn off your force field?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Despite the relative warmth, Dodge’s teeth were still chattering uncontrollably. His eyes gradually focused on the area beyond the faces of his friends, and he saw that they were surrounded on all sides by blue-tinted ice. “Where are we?”

“We are exactly where these flying machines brought us. It turns out, there’s something here that pulls these exoskeletons in like a magnet. We got lost fighting against it. It wasn’t until we started looking for you that we realized what was happening.”

“You’re very lucky indeed,” added Hobbs. “You have a little frostbite on your nose and fingers, but you’ll mend. But if we hadn’t literally tripped over you when we did, you would have spent the rest of eternity in this frozen wasteland.”

Dodge got to his feet and gave the ice enclosure another look. It was more a tunnel than a recess, gently sloping downward into the heart of the ice. It appeared to run straight in both directions, and when he turned his head in the direction of the rise, he could faintly hear the Antarctic wind howling past the mouth of the passage. He turned to Hobbs. “This isn’t natural, is it?”

Hobbs shook his head. “There is something at work here that defies nature.”

“We’re not going to find those answers here,” intoned Hurricane. “I say we buckle up and see where this train takes us.”

He followed his own advice, and as soon as his belt was clasped, started sliding down the tunnel as if pushed by an invisible hand. Dodge’s chattering teeth flashed a smile, and a moment later he and the Padre were close behind.

It soon became apparent that the unseen force drawing them on was nothing as simple as magnetism. The exoskeletons were not being pulled in a straight line, but rather followed the contours of the tunnel, weaving through its undulations and even making a right-angle turn at an unexpected crossroads. They were deep beneath the surface now but the walls still glowed an eerie blue and their steady pace remained unchanged.

“Who do you suppose made this place?” Hurley said, breaking the ominous silence.

Dodge didn’t have to think about that one. “The same people that made these flying devices.”

“If they were people,” Hobbs added, cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Padre?”

Hobbs gave an odd smile. “Look around you. What do you think is the explanation for it all? These contraptions that give us the power of flight? An impossible tunnel into the ice that glows like daylight? There is uncanny power at work here.”

“Uncanny?” scoffed Hurley. “That’s not what Doc Newton said. He talked about Tesla and the earth’s magnetic field.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps that’s the only way a man of science can grasp something that he does not understand. Do you remember when I told you about the Hindu deity who had the power to fly through the air and throw lightning bolts like spears?”

Dodge raised an eyebrow; he had not been privy to that earlier conversation. “You think all of this is the work of ancient Hindu gods?”

Hurley shook his head and gave the clergyman a patronizing grin. “No. He thinks this is Atlantis.”

“Or something like it,” Hobbs added, unashamedly. “The Bible tells a different version of the story. In Genesis, it speaks of the sons of God leaving their heavenly abode to take the daughters of men as wives. Their sons were mighty giants — the Nephilim — and they filled the earth with such wickedness that God determined to wipe all creation away in a deluge of water.”

“Atlantis sinking beneath the sea.”

“Just so. We can only imagine what sort of marvelous works those fallen angels and their mutant offspring carried out, but in those ancient legends we get a glimpse. Legends such as the tales of Indra.”

“But why Antarctica?”

Hobbs shrugged. “Why anywhere? We can only surmise that when the heavens fell, the face of the planet was changed forever. Before the Flood, the great oceans were perhaps not so great. Afterward, the Ice Age would have locked away any physical remains of that wicked society, but perhaps here some vestige remains intact.”

Dodge pondered this version of events. It was no less plausible than any other explanation. Come to think of it, it’s the only explanation anyone’s offered.

The abrupt end of the journey offered nothing to support or refute Father Hobbs hypothesis. The tunnel passed into a vaulted chamber from which several similar roads radiated outward like spokes on a wheel, and they were drawn to the exact center of the cavern where they came to a sudden stop.

Dodge unbuckled the belt and moved toward the perimeter of the chamber. The walls were uniformly smooth, without any sort of ornamentation or distinctive architecture. He was developing a grudging affinity for the Padre’s explanation; no army of human workers could have hewed out such an imposing fastness in this austere place. This was the work of a god… or perhaps a devil. “Which way now?”

Hurley also began walking the outer circle, pausing at each tunnel mouth to inspect the icy floor. “There are faint footprints in the ice. I’ll wager they’ve been here since… since he found it.”

Dodge didn’t have to ask who the big man was talking about.

“He didn’t know what he was looking for so he wandered up and down…Hello. This one.”

“How can you tell?”

Hurricane flashed them a triumphant grin. “The tracks go in, but they don’t come out.”

Hobbs affected a sour frown. “Why don’t I find that encouraging?”

The invisible force that had drawn them to the central chamber had ceased at the moment of their arrival. They were now able to move unimpeded and used the exoskeletons to fly down the tunnel.

“You know,” Dodge observed. “As big as this place is, I don’t think it was Atlantis.”

“Why do you say that?” Curiously, it was Hurley that voiced the question, not the Padre.

“There’s nothing but tunnels. A city would have residences, marketplaces. This seems more like a refuge or a frontier outpost.”

“A repository for their technology,” ventured Hurley. “That would make sense.”

Hobbs however withheld comment and when they reached the end of the passage some minutes later, what they found left them too awed to speculate. The half-domed chamber in which they found themselves was immense beyond belief; easily twice the size of the hub cavern, even though it was semi-circular, with one flat wall that dominated its far extremity. The dimensions of the vault were only the beginning however, for inscribed on that broad slab of ice were designs so intricate and terrifying that they could only be the workmanship of demons.

Dodge found himself involuntarily turning to flee, as though the relief figures carved in the frozen surface were alive and coming after him, and to his surprise, he saw that Hurley was also beating a hasty retreat.

“Stop.” Hobbs voice was compelling and both of the other men stopped dead in their tracks. “Do not look at the wall.”

Even as the priest spoke, Dodge felt his irrational terror slipping away, replaced by embarrassment at having panicked. Hurley echoed the sentiment. “Uh, Padre, what just happened?”

“The images carved on the wall are… well, think of it as an ancient ‘Keep Out’ sign. The specific arrangement of statuary and hieroglyphics work together to trigger an instinctive urge to flee.”

“You’re kidding, right? It’s a picture so scary that you have to run away?”

“It’s the perfect way to keep the curious away. The ancient Egyptian sorcerers left curses on the doorposts of their Pharaohs’ tombs, but a warning is only as good as the language; most tomb robbers were illiterate.” Hobbs strode forward, out of the view of the other men who obediently avoided looking at the wall, and began examining the carvings.

“Is that what this is?” ventured Dodge. “A tomb?”

“How come you can look at it?”

Hobbs ignored Hurley’s complaint. “Perhaps a tomb. Perhaps something…”

“What?” Dodge gritted his teeth against the expected visceral response and looked up despite the earlier admonition. The waves of terror were bad, but his rational mind won out. He found the Padre several feet off the ground, staring at a blank spot in the middle of the elaborate mural.

“There’s a door here.”

Hurley also sublimated his panic response and rose up to inspect the portal blocked by a sheet of featureless ice. “Great. A door in the middle of the world’s biggest ‘No Trespassing’ sign.”

“This is what he found, isn’t it.”

Hobbs nodded soberly. “I don’t believe this is an ancient outpost or a tomb, but something much more sinister. In the Bible, this place was called ‘The Abyss’ and when it was opened, great plagues were unleashed on mankind.”

“He found it,” Dodge deduced. “And let something out; something that changed him into… whatever it is he’s become; a sort of evil god.”

“Yes. It’s possible he has no memory of his former life.”

Dodge thought back to the strange encounter on the airship. Perhaps there was still some vestige of the man whose mind and body were now thoroughly possessed by the dark god. But trying to reform the lost polar explorer who had inadvertently opened Pandora’s Box was not their mission. “Do you think he put the President in there?”

Hobbs nodded, and Hurley chimed. “I’d wager money on it.”

“Dare we open it?”

“Whatever evil was once imprisoned here has long since escaped.” Hobbs tone was less than convincing however and he made no move toward the portal. He was waiting for something; waiting for a command from his leader.

For as long as Hobbs and Hurley had followed Falcon, he had led them true, and now these brave men needed that kind of leadership again. They would have followed Falcon into Hell itself if he had given the command, but without an assertive voice to rally them, they were immobilized. Dodge shared their anxiety but with it he felt a growing frustration. He didn’t want to be their leader, but if that’s what it was going to take… “Open it.”

Hobbs reticence evaporated and he moved forward to touch the doorway. Dodge perceived no mechanism to secure or open the portal, but Hobbs evidently knew something about secret doors, for after a few seconds, the ice was gone as if it had evaporated to steam in a flash.

Dodge braced himself against a half-expected rush of evil spirits, billowing like black smoke, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, there was merely a square opening in the ice, a window into impenetrable night. He eased forward and peered inside.

Beyond the threshold, the darkness was absolute. Even the walls of the abyss surrounding the door itself could not be distinguished. Dodge extended a hand into the void and tried to find any of its limits, but his hands touched only emptiness.

“It may be,” Hobbs offered gravely, “that what lies beyond this doorway is not a place on this earth.”

“Not on this…” Hurley’s outburst faltered as soon as he peered into the black opening and he said nothing more on the matter.

“Mr. President!” Dodge’s call did not echo, but was swallowed whole, as if he had shouted into a pillow. He glanced at his companions. “I’m going in.”

“Yeah,” Hurricane offered unenthusiastically. “Right behind you.”

Dodge shared the big man’s apprehension, but there was no turning back. He angled his body forward and let the exoskeleton carry him into the black maw….

…and stepped onto the cold tile floor of the office.

Startled by the sudden change, he whirled to catch the door, but it had already clicked shut. He stared mutely at it for a moment, seeing from behind the painted black letters that were so familiar: “Sports Desk.” Impulsively, he tried the doorknob and pulled the door open, but beyond was only the familiar corridors of the Clarion Building.

He shot a glance at his watch, realizing that he was dangerously close to the press time for the early edition and headed for his desk. He tried to remember the particular facts of the game he was going to write…No, it wasn’t a game. There was something else I was going to do…Was it a Falcon story?

Just thinking about Captain Falcon broke the spell. He became aware of the exoskeleton, as if it had emerged from a fog, and he remembered everything. Then where am I? I was looking for…

“Mr. President?” Curiously, no one in the office looked up from their labors when he shouted, so he did it again as he opened the door once more. “Mr. President?”

The Commander-in-Chief looked up from his desk as Dodge passed through the doorway into the Oval Office. “Yes? Who are you? Who let you in?”

“I’m Dodge Dalton, sir.” He stared at the familiar face of America’s executive leader, trying to remember why he had come here. He felt faintly foolish for having barged into the man’s private office and it didn’t help that he had no good explanation.

“Dodge? Ah, yes, Mr. Dodge; I remember now, we met at the… at…” The Presidential brow wrinkled behind his spectacles. “I’m sure we’ve met. You write those marvelous Captain Falcon stories.”

“That’s right, sir. We did meet, last Sunday in the…” The veil lifted again. “Mr. President, you’re in danger here. We have to get out.”

“No, no. I have a two o’clock appointment with the Secretary of State. In fact, he should have been here by now.”

“Sir, this isn’t what it seems. We’re not in the White House. You were abducted last Sunday by a group of mercenaries using advanced technology. Try to remember.”

“Mercenaries?” scoffed the President. “I seriously doubt a group of thugs could…”

Dodge took the growing consternation evident in the President’s expression as a good sign. “We’re in some kind of… I don’t know what to call it. It’s like an illusion, and every time you turn a corner you forget why you’re here. You have to concentrate on what you remember about last Sunday. Remember the garden party?”

“Advanced technology, you say. Yes, I… Something about lightning and men flying through the air.” He stiffened in his chair. “Good God, I remember now. We were on that airplane for hours. We landed in the sea and then he brought me here. Mr. Dodge, you’ve got to tell me, who is the devil behind all this?”

“That’s a long story sir. The important thing is that we’re here to rescue you. I just have to figure out how to get back to the door.”

“You just said ‘we.’ Where are your confederates?”

“Outside in the ice cave. I know it’s a lot to swallow, sir, but you have to concentrate. Keep thinking about what happened.” Dodge followed his own advice, trying to picture the steps that had led him to this place so he could retrace them, but when he opened the door, there was only an unfamiliar hallway lined with other doors. “One of these doors must lead out.”

The President rose from behind his desk, and something about that image seemed odd to Dodge. Something about the Chief Executive’s gait… “Sir, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you walking.”

“Eh?” The President glanced down involuntarily. “Why that’s because I… My goodness, that’s curious.”

He turned a few circles experimentally then flexed his knees as if preparing to jump. “Extraordinary. I haven’t had this much strength in my legs in years.”

Dodge was about to ask for clarification when it occurred to him that he too felt better than he had in a long time. He glanced at his hands and was mildly pleased to see only unmarked pink flesh. There was no pain from… I hurt my hands, didn’t I? Why does this look strange?

“Say, Dodge. Are you a tennis player?”

“Tennis? Mr. President we…” Dodge scratched his head, trying to remember what he had been doing a moment before. He curled his fingers, thinking about the heft of a tennis racquet. Tennis with the President; what an amazing story that would make. “Well, baseball’s more my game, but I’ll bat a few over the net with you.”

“Outstanding.”

But the President contracted poliomyelitis a few years ago, Dodge recalled, slowly putting the pieces together. The news reports said he had recovered, but… I’ve never seen him walk. Yet he must have recovered, because he appears perfectly healthy now. Something’s not right.

“This isn’t real,” Dodge blurted. “We’re part of an illusion; this is all in our heads Mr. President.”

The other man just stared back as if Dodge was speaking a foreign language.

“You know I’m right, sir. There’s no cure for polio.” He felt a pang of guilt as he said it, but maybe the harsh observation would be the slap needed to wake them both from this dream state.

“But it feels so real, just like when I was young….” The Chief Executive sagged back onto his desk, a look of pained bewilderment twisting his face. “Is this heaven or hell?”

“A bit of both, sir. As near as we can tell, it was a prison built by a forgotten antediluvian civilization, to banish some ancient evil.” Dodge rapidly rattled off the fact as he remembered them from Hobbs’ discourse. It didn’t matter if he was wrong about some of the details; the important thing was to keep talking. “What better way to keep someone from trying to break out of prison than to give them everything they want, to make them believe they aren’t really in prison.

“We aren’t physically here, Mr. President. It’s like that trick the yogis of India can do; sending their spirit traveling while their body is in a trance. We just need to figure out how to get back to our bodies.” He looked at the door again and laid his land on the ornate lever. “Padre! Hurricane! We’re coming out.”

He lowered his voice, speaking more to himself than anyone. “When I open this door, we will be back in the ice cave, back in our bodies… now.”

The door swung open and for a moment, Dodge thought he had failed. Instead of the blackness of the abyss, there was merely a featureless white wall. But then he heard the sound of someone speaking and his curiosity drew him through the portal.

“It’s ice! Mr. President, we’ve made it.”

His elation was short lived. As he crossed the threshold and once more entered the half-domed chamber, he saw Hurley and Hobbs waiting below. Then he saw that they were not alone; a group of mercenaries in exoskeletons stood in a ring around them, holding them at bay.

Then he saw Molly with the hands of the dark god tight around her throat.