The Dakota Cipher

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I descended as quickly as I could but a false step would mean a fatal fall, so I had to pick my way with care. It seemed an eternity until I came within hailing distance of my companions and could shout to Magnus. ‘There’s something under this tree!’

‘What?’

‘A strip of metal runs from the top through the trunk! It draws lightning! And I think it must be to power something down below! We’ve got to find it, because Red Jacket is coming!’

By the time I’d climbed to the lowest branch, swung by my arms, and then dropped to the carpet of leaves and soft earth below, Magnus had made another circuit of the trunk. ‘This Yggdrasil is planted as firmly as the Rock of Gibraltar,’ he said.

‘It’s been nearly four hundred and fifty years since your Norse were here.’ I didn’t say ‘might,’ or ‘maybe,’ I was accepting the presence of these long-lost Templar explorers as established fact. ‘The tree has undoubtedly grown a great deal, and maybe grown unusually fast because of the infusion of electricity, as the French scientist Bertholon theorised. But as it grew upward, it somehow carried a strip of wire skyward to serve as a lightning rod. I think the wire ran out, and lightning strikes keep the tree trimmed to the height it is now. That wire had to come from somewhere below.’

He squinted up at the branches. ‘I don’t see a wire.’

‘It’s inside the wood, going all the way to the ground. And what was the point unless the ground end of the wire is attached to something important? And if it was important, wouldn’t you want a way to get back to it? So there was a way under once, a tunnel or door.’ I was glancing about myself, impatient because the Indians were coming. ‘Where that root arches at the butt of the tree, perhaps.’ I pointed. ‘Imagine the wood growing over and around it. I know the tree looks solid, but …’

Magnus eyed the bark speculatively. ‘So there’ll be a door again. Forgive me, Yggdrasil.’ He took his huge axe and went to a concave cavity at the base of the tree near an enormous root. ‘It is odd how it grew here. The tree is indented.’ He aimed, and swung. There was a crack, and the tree groaned. ‘If there’s a tunnel, we’ll need torches.’

‘Little Frog and I will gather branches,’ Namida said.

‘How could your Norse Templars know to come here of all places, in the middle of an unexplored continent?’ I asked as my companion chopped.

‘They didn’t,’ Magnus said. ‘They knew the continent was here, from the Vikings, and after Black Friday of 1309 they scattered for survival and took their artefacts with them.’ He swung and chopped, swung and chopped, his breath catching as he talked. ‘From the Indians they hear of a rich hunting ground with rivers running north, south, east, west … Is it the ancestral site of paradise? They’re far beyond the reach of their persecutors, with superior technology amid primitive Indians. They had steel, and the natives didn’t. They dreamt of establishing a utopia centred around the energy of whatever artefact they’d brought.’ Chips were flying.

‘Thor’s hammer.’

He nodded, swinging the great axe again. ‘Perhaps they fought the Indians with it. Perhaps they reburied it when it became apparent their small numbers couldn’t prevail. And perhaps, with no time to build a pyramid or tower or other way to mark its place where they could find it again, they used ancient secrets to tie it to a living tree that could be a beacon to future Templars, while terrifying the Indians to stay away.’

‘A beacon hidden by its own storms.’

‘Yes, and the storm itself a beacon. So this tree, if not Yggdrasil, is a machine, to sustain what we’ve come to fetch.’

‘Sustain how?’

He nodded upward at the sky.

The day kept turning darker as the clouds built, and I heard a rumble of thunder. The tree’s energy somehow created its own storms each day as the sun climbed higher, and its own winter each night. Lightning flickered high above like that wielded by Thor’s hammer. Or did I have it backward – did the lightning feed the tool?

‘Men are coming!’ Namida warned.

And yes, in the murk up the slope from which we’d descended there was movement in the trees. Red Jacket and his Dakota would be as bewildered as we were by the botanical giant and its cone of weather. They’d hesitate, I guessed, and then crawl closer through the high grass to watch and investigate. A bullet or two would make them slow down even more.

I readied the load on my rifle.

‘Hurry!’ Little Frog begged.

Now the axe was swinging as steadily as a metronome, the Norwegian’s aim precise, chips flying like confetti and spraying old leaves like new snow. The heavy axe was little more than a pinprick to the gargantuan tree and yet it seemed the monarch shuddered each time Magnus chopped, as if it hadn’t endured such indignity in all the centuries of its existence. Who else would dare attack? The idea of tunnelling into the massive bole was insane – except as the axe work went on, the wood was changing.

‘It’s punk past the bark and outer core,’ Magnus said, breathing heavily as he swung. ‘It’s starting to come apart in chunks. This tree isn’t as strong as it appears.’

Another rumble from above and that curious prickling that I remembered from the City of Ghosts south of Jerusalem. The air felt alive, and crackling.

The meadow grass swayed as Red Jacket’s renegades crawled through it. I aimed at one such ripple, fired, and the movement stopped. Crouching behind a root, I reloaded. ‘Chop faster, Magnus!’

Now there were puffs of answering smoke from the high grass, the crack of gunfire, and bullets whapped into the trunk around us. Bloodhammer cursed as if they were annoying insects. The women dragged their bundles of twigs and wove them to make crude torches, using flint and steel to start a small fire in the leaves. I kept up a covering fire. Our persistent pursuers lay flat and invisible.

‘There’s a hole!’ Magnus cried.

We turned. A dirt tunnel like a burrow had appeared under the massive root, bigger than the opening into the bear cave. The tree had grown around the entrance. ‘Take the women and go look,’ I ordered. ‘I’ll hold Red Jacket’s band off!’

I sighted, squeezed, and felt the reassuring buck against my shoulder, smelling the burnt powder. The sniping actually relaxed me. The familiar motions of cock, squeeze, ram, and prime were something to do, and I could keep our tormentors out of effective range. Bullets whacked back, my attackers invisible except for the puffs of musket smoke. They were smart enough to move after firing.

Finally I heard Magnus shout.

‘We need an electrician!’

‘Then come keep guard!’

Magnus crawled out and took the rifle with one hand, shaking the other as if burnt. ‘It’s very strange,’ he said, wiping dirt from his mouth.

So I dropped down into the tunnel. The soil was held back by what at first I thought were roots, but then I realised the subterranean part of the tree had grown along the form of a tunnel made by a different support entirely: ivory. The Norse had lined the roof of their passageway with fossil mastodon tusks. Had they found the elephants? Found a boneyard? Or done in the last mammoths themselves?

The passage was drier than expected, and ahead was a scent of something scorched. I felt my way to the torchlight where the women were waiting. Namida and Little Frog were crouched in a womblike room too low for us to stand in, somewhere under the heart of the tree’s trunk, transfixed by an odd contraption. Ribs of root extended from tree trunk above to ground below, forming a cage of wood the size of a ship’s trunk. Above this cage, a glittering wire as thick as a feather’s quill descended from the cave roof to a wooden cylinder the size of a small keg. The wire took just one turn around the drum, so I guessed it had once held a thousand feet or more of costly wire that had unreeled as the tree grew upward over the centuries. When the drum was finally empty, the growth stopped, stunted by lightning because the rod could go no higher.

But that wasn’t what fascinated the women.

Instead, after its single turn around the drum, the wire also led downward to the thick, heavy head of …

An upright hammer.

The weapon was bigger than a carpenter’s tool but smaller than a sledge, and from the butt of its short handle to the massive head was about as long as my forearm. The hammerhead was fat and blunt, made of some kind of silvery ore that glowed, and looked to weigh at least fifteen pounds. More wires curved among the web of roots, and the hammer was balanced on the end of its metal handle as if kept from toppling by electrical force.

‘It’s Thor’s hammer,’ I said in disbelief. Or someone’s hammer, connected to the lightning rod of this monster tree the same way I’d connected my Leyden jars of batteries to my hand-cranked generator at the siege of Acre in Israel. Mesmerised, I reached out to grab it, but Namida stopped my arm.

‘No! Watch what happens.’

Suddenly there was a blinding flash and sparks flew like that fireworks display at Mortefontaine. The chamber shuddered and there was a low, distant boom, the far-off report of thunder. Then the sparks fell away, the hammer now blazing with electric fire that had been fed to it by the wire. It hummed. Slowly, its glow began to fade.

‘It feeds on the lightning,’ Namida said. ‘The tree does too, I think. Magnus tried to touch the hammer, and it burnt him.’

So the hammer was being charged and kept ready, in much the same way I’d charged an electrical sword I’d used in a duel with Big Ned during the siege of Acre. Yes, the fundamental force that animates nature! Here was a weapon of some kind, yet what could we use to snare the thing without harming ourselves? I tried to think of what old Ben would have done, but was too distracted by the pop of gunshots from outside the tree. ‘We have to go help Magnus.’

We crawled back out. Magnus was crouched behind one of the enormous roots as I’d been and the three of us joined him.

‘Did you get the hammer?’

‘I don’t know how to seize it.’

Our assailants had crawled closer, taking less pain to hide themselves.

‘We need it!’

‘Magnus, we’re not gods.’ I took my rifle back and handed him a musket. I shot, there was a yelp, their movement went still again, and then I heard an odd, nasal version of Cecil’s voice.

‘We have Pierre!’

The voyageur was alive!

And so was my enemy.

‘Hold your fire!’ I ordered, reloading.

Slowly the English nobleman rose from the grass and hauled the Frenchman with him. The voyageur who’d rescued us was battered, his shirt loose, his eyes blackened, and his leggings in tatters. It looked like he’d been dragged across the prairie instead of marched. His hands were bound.

Little Frog gave a gasp, dark eyes bright with tears, and glanced desperately back at our tunnel.

But it wasn’t Pierre who startled me.

Instead it was Cecil Somerset himself. The handsome, proud face had been shattered by the rifle ball I’d fired during the canoe pursuit from Red Jacket’s village. His right cheek was cratered. Parts of his teeth and upper jaw were missing and his right eye was an empty socket. The wound was red and yellow with infection and pus, and his other eye was painfully squinted against the insects that buzzed at his head to feed on the corruption. The dashing aristocrat had been turned into a frightening monster. How long could the Englishman live with such a hideous wound? He must be keeping himself alive by force of will – because he wanted whatever was under the tree. His broken sword was jammed in his belt.

Another figure rose in the grass. Aurora! Makeup gone, hair greasy, clothes filthy and tattered from hard riding, yet she was still strikingly beautiful, tanned as an Amazon, holding a hunting piece of her own. Her fine bones and lovely figure were still there, and despite my logical loathing I couldn’t help but be wrenched by her allure. To underscore the gulf between us, she lifted her gun and deliberately sighted at me with no hesitation.

And then Red Jacket stood, too, one sleeve empty but holding a tomahawk in the other hand, his English coat ragged but still a brilliant scarlet in the weird light. His look was simple hatred. He’d rip out my heart if he could. His mongrel band of Dakota and Ojibway renegades stood too, a scarred, vengeful bunch who looked more like pirates than princes of the plains. They looked greedy and foul, nothing like the proud warriors who had helped us on our canoe trip.

‘My. Isn’t this a fine reunion?’

‘We want you dead, Gage!’ Cecil called in a voice made raspy from wounds and pain. ‘We want you to die horribly! I have twenty of the best warriors in the world here to make sure that happens! But we’ll spare you all – Bloodhammer, the women, even little Pierre here – in exchange for whatever artefact you’ve found.’ He tilted his head back to look up at the tree. ‘I must say, the Rite never expected this.’ Another flash, high above at the top in the clouds we couldn’t see, and a rumble of thunder. The light cast him in an eerie glow.

‘The Egyptian Rite knew what we were looking for?’

‘The Egyptian Rite knew that Ethan Gage is always looking for something.’

While Cecil looked as cocky as a man can with just half a face, his Indians, I noticed, were distinctly uneasy. They hadn’t expected this great tree either, with its weird storms and brooding shade. They too were thinking of the Wendigo.

‘You call me little Pierre?’ Pierre croaked in protest. ‘No man says that of the great Pierre Radisson!’

‘Silence!’ And Cecil struck him with a leather quirt, and then slashed him again and again as if reminded to take out his own pain and frustration on his captive. Little Frog gave a cry and a sob. I quivered with disgust. It took every ounce of discipline not to kill Somerset at once, but if I shot the monster, the others would strike Pierre down and rush us before I could reload. The voyageur swayed but stayed upright, eyes closed against the blows.

Magnus had given the muskets to Namida and Little Frog and now he picked up his axe, ready to charge like a Viking berserker. ‘Not yet,’ I cautioned him.

Finally the Englishman stopped whipping our friend, gasping from exertion, while Pierre winced in miserable pain. Cecil’s one eye glittered with terrible madness, a tormented fury completely different than the passion of Magnus Bloodhammer.

‘I am not a patient man, Ethan Gage,’ Cecil said, wheezing. ‘The Rite knows what the Templars were trying to assemble, while you’ve no idea. Give it up, whatever you’ve found, and you make the world a better place. You can have this snivelling frog and this entire cursed prairie! I leave you and the savages to it! Give it over and we can be friends again.’ He tried to smile, but the disfigurement made it a grimace. ‘Maybe I’ll give you my sister again.’

‘Don’t believe him,’ Magnus hissed.

‘Of course not. This bunch even cheats at dice.’ I called to the Englishman, ‘It would help if your sister stopped aiming at me!’

‘Then lower your own gun, Gage! Save your friend! It’s time to be civilised again! What’s past is past!’ Again, the hideous grin.

‘Send Pierre and I’ll stand easy!’

‘Stand, and we’ll send Pierre!’

Aurora swung her gun away. I lowered mine. Cecil gave a push, and Pierre staggered towards us. Then the voyageur stopped.

‘They’ve killed me already,’ he croaked. ‘I’m ready for the next life, Ethan. Don’t give up whatever it is you have. These are evil people and must not have it.’

His words hung in the air, all of us frozen by his refusal to advance farther.

Then everything happened at once.

Aurora snarled, swung her gun upward, and fired into the Frenchman’s back. As his knees buckled Little Frog screamed in outrage, fired, missed, and I thought she might charge, but instead she threw down her musket and bolted to our burrow. Namida shot, too, and one of the Indians went down.

I’d fallen flat, just in time to avoid a volley of Indian bullets and arrows that thunked into the titanic tree, but Magnus grunted and spun as at least one shot clipped him. Namida dropped to reload, too. Then, as Lord Somerset fell on Pierre and brandished his broken sword to take the Frenchman’s scalp, I raised myself on my elbows and fired into the monster’s chest, a bullet I suspect he half wished for. Cecil pitched backward, his broken sword flying from his hand.

Aurora shrieked in renewed fury.

Magnus was running at her silently, lifting his axe despite his wound.

Then the earth heaved.

It was as if a wave bucked the tree and the ground rolled. Sheets of lightning far bigger than anything we’d seen before rippled overhead, sparking as it struck the branches, and there was a wail of agony behind so chilling that I froze. It was Little Frog, screaming! Namida was terrified, clinging to a root like the rail of a ship, and Yggdrasil, or whatever the devil this overgrown twig was, rocked and swayed, loosened roots making pops and burps like a giant smacking its lips. Was it an earthquake? Magnus was thrown to his knees by the lurch, and Aurora, her gun empty, was crawling desperately away in the grass.

All the Indians except Red Jacket were shouting and backing away.

Then Little Frog burst from the hole, clothes smoking, and rushed past me towards Magnus, crying something in her tongue.

She was wielding the hammer!

Her arm was horribly blistered and swollen, and her charge was more like a stagger. She’d paid some terrible price to reach within the cage of roots and wire to snatch the weapon to avenge her lover, Pierre, and when she did the entire tree had quaked. She fell and slid on the grass, her grasp coming loose, and the hammer skidded away from her. The Indians froze, looking in wonder at a weapon that glowed as if it had come from the forge. Now Red Jacket was charging with his tomahawk, knowing our guns were empty. I yanked out my own hatchet. We’d finish this as I should have when he kicked me at Rendezvous.

I wouldn’t have come close to Thor’s hammer, but Magnus snatched it up with a bellow, screaming in pain as its energy coursed through him. He seemed to swell in stature, his beard and hair jutting out from electrical force, his own hand scorching at the touch. Yet even as he cried out he lifted the weapon skyward, spinning it in a crazed circle.

The sky erupted with fire. Lightning cracked in an arcing circle around the crown of the tree, bolt after bolt, some striking Yggdrasil but others lancing down to spots on the ground. Wind howled and then screamed, and clouds that had been merely menacing before began to boil and churn. The Indians scattered except for Red Jacket, who remorselessly chopped at Little Frog as he darted by, staving her temple with vicious efficiency. She dropped, instantly dead. I crouched, ready for him. And then Magnus threw the hammer and lightning blazed where we stood.

Namida and I were hurled back against the trunk of the ash as if punched, and Magnus reeled backward too. But the force of the bolts struck Red Jacket head-on with such searing power that it stopped his charge as if he’d hit an invisible wall, freezing him in agony as energy sizzled like a corona. His coat burst into flames. Then his eyes boiled and jutted, his tongue swelled like a loaf of bread, and he was kicked backward a dozen feet, his moccasins flying off.

Thor’s hammer had worked!

The mystical tool flew back into Magnus’s hands through some weird magnetism between weapon and wielder. The Norwegian caught it with an agonised yell. Bloodhammer seemed infused with electricity himself, clothes smoking, hammer, sky, and tree crackling with attractant charges, he gave a great shout of agony and swung in a circle, a sheet of energy roiling out of the hammer head and blasting into the grass. Fire sprang up all around the tree, a circular wall of flame, and what Indians hadn’t been killed by the searing charge were running for their lives. Now Magnus was howling in agony, twisting about, and with his final strength he leant back and hurled the hammer straight up, as far as he could throw, the weapon turning over and over in the air.

The sky exploded.

Lightning bolts shot from a dozen directions to converge on the hammer and collide with a colossal clap of thunder. It was a slap of sound, momentarily deafening me, and everything went white and then dark again, the hammer falling back towards Magnus and then bouncing off the ground because none of us dared touch it anymore. It radiated energy like a weapon snatched from the sun. It was sizzling, boiling away. Magnus staggered back against the bark of the tree, shot, burnt, pained, stunned, and with his arms up against the curtain of fire he’d ignited.

The sky went black and the only illumination was from the grass fire devouring the meadow around the tree, burning both in towards us and out towards the fleeing Dakota. Through the shimmering heat and smoke I could see Aurora, waving her empty weapon and cursing as the flames caught the grass around her. As my hearing returned I could hear her call my name and promising to meet me in hell. Then the smoke was too much, the flames lit the lower branches of Yggdrasil, and it seemed we’d set a holocaust to consume ourselves.

We’d ignited Ragnarok, end of the world.