Islands in the Sky Read online

  "Most interesting; from what I can tell by this script, this was a marina used along a vast trade route," the professor exclaimed, "there are several mentions here to additional ferry harbors along this course," he finished.

  "This tributary must have been much larger eons ago," Mica mentioned as she peered downstream trying to imagine what it must have been like, "Does it say were this waterway leads?"

  "There's a reference to something which appears to be called 'Jotu' and 'Svar' or something of that sort; but due to the syntax I may be pronouncing it wrong," Logan answered.

  "The other branches up river from here must still be choked with ice," I stated, mentioning the obvious.

  "Those names ring a bell, but I can't place it..." Alexander trailed off while fiddling with this round spectacles.

  We all climbed upon the frozen dock to get a better look downriver and noted areas of rapids. These were caused by the added volume to the waterway from the converging streams. Unfortunately, the trail we had been using came to an abrupt end; leaving us no other means to continue.

  "Well, we can't continue by foot; anyone up for a swim?" Alexander joked, though none of us were laughing.

  Alexander's self bemused smirk quickly faded as we heard a disturbing crack beneath our feet. We lost our balance as the dock shifted below us, and we were sent grasping for one another as the pier began to fail under our combined weight. The securing edge fractured behind us and the docked dropped below; falling into the stream of ice melt. We grabbed for Alex as he nearly slid off the raft which the severed pier had become.

  The dock floated down the river with us clinging upon it, spinning as the edges bumped into the ice and rock of the banks; whittling our craft ever smaller. None of us were prepared for what had happened, and we couldn't gain a footing on the tilting raft as it careened down the icy shaft. Once we had passed through the rapids, our precarious craft settled into a gentle rock.

  "Did we lose anybody?" I asked as I got on my knees, looking around. At one point I had thought that Alex had slid off and into the drink, but we found him clenching for dear life on one of the exposed supports left upon the broken pier.

  "Help him over here, lad," Logan directed, "we need to keep a center of gravity on this floatation."

  It was no small feat of balance to reach Alex where he was left stranded, and he seemed equally desperate to reach out for me and to keep his death grip on the slippery post he had attached himself too. All things aside, thankfully the water wasn't icy cold, but had been either warmed to a mild degree either by geothermal activity or the theoretical geomagnetic properties in the area Logan has spoken of. Either way, we were lucky we hadn't all slipped off and drowned in the rapids. Our heavy coats and insulated bibs would have dragged us to the bottom of the riverbed.

  "Well, that takes care of our transportation problem," Mica offered offhand.

  "I wouldn't count our blessings just yet," the professor cried, "keep in mind those inlets from the cavern were the product of waterfalls..." he trailed off with a worried look in his eyes.

  His reminder of that didn't sit well with us; for we were struggling in a helpless situation which dramatically sapped our morale as it was. With great care, we centered ourselves on the raft; sitting back to back for support. The speed of the river slowed as the river widened, and our anxiety began to wane with the ease of the swaying waters. Each of us sat there in silence for several long minutes, concerned about our fate.

  Like a sign from heaven, we peered up in wonder as glowing spores illuminated the ceiling above us. Tentacles of blue and green lighted our course; created by the mosaic of plants growing from the ice. Mica peered over the edge of the raft as something caught her eye. Below the crystal clear waters we saw bright pink plants waving in the current from the bottom of the riverbed, fluttering like seaweed in a heavy tide.

  Mica wanted to get a sample, but I had to convince her to sit down before she capsized us. The course of the river led us into a wide estuary where the flow of the stream subsided to a crawl. Glowing colors of turquoise and marine spotted the entire structure above while the pool before us reflected a colorful river of rose and magenta forests swaying beneath the chill waters; appearing like something out of a fairytale.

  "It's so beautiful," Mica whispered as her colleagues concurred with her observation.

  I was equally captivated, though finding myself both drained and tired at this point; and still lamenting about Tom's unfortunate death whenever my mind wandered. Guilt can be a dungeon of the mind; and I didn't have a key to escape the chains I had wrought upon myself from his passing.

  "Look, up ahead!" Logan nearly shouted as he pointed towards an outcropping of stone; one of which was similar to the signage we had found at the previous dock.

  We place ourselves two to either side of the craft and paddled our way towards the harbor with our thick mittens; which worked better than we had expected. As we approached the dock we saw several more outcroppings of broken stone; all tilted askew which led down several paths into the mountain. Each of us hopped onto the shore, and almost lost Alexander again as we reached out to catch him while he leapt from the raft which began to wander farther away from the bank.

  "What is that?" Alex inquired as he adjusted his glasses while padding his wet coat. There was a strange low roar in the air which we couldn't quite pinpoint until we looked back towards the raft where the river caught it in its flow. There on the floating craft sat Alexander's camera, left abandoned like some unwanted stepchild. Alex gave a groan of grief, as did Mica for the lost images it held for their records of the expedition.

  As if to accentuate the loss, a moment later the craft suddenly tilted upward half out of the water and disappeared from view. We had not seen the crest of the deep waterfall in the distance due to the strange ambient light. We counted ourselves lucky for having chosen to put an end to the joyride when we did.

  "Oh my, that's quite unfortunate..." Logan sighed as he noted the loss of the photographic equipment, "let that be lesson Mica, to keep your camera safe; we can't afford to come out of this empty handed," he advised.

  Mica nodded in agreement and we turned towards the broken corridors spanning before us. They all appeared to be leading in the same direction, so we chose one at random.

  "Is there anything you can decipher upon that column?" I suggested to Logan before we left the area.

  "Hmm, it signifies this is the way to Jotu," he frowned while reading the text, "but there also seems to be an ominous warning scribbled here in haste; cautioning about something I can't seem to make out ...bah, I have no idea what this means," the professor admitted; being unable to translate the last of it.

  With exasperation, Logan turned and left us to take the lead down the central hall; which we chose since it seemed less cluttered with debris than the adjacent passages. Unfortunately, none of us saw the sinister looking icon hidden beneath the thin sheet of ice which fell away as we left, revealing a demonic looking creature scratched below the ancient warning. One that may have very well led us to favor another avenue than the one we had chosen.

  The Sunken City

  The aroma within the tight corridor was unusually musty. We had become accustomed to the crisp clean air of the glacier ice; but that atmosphere quickly faded once we had entered the damaged passages leading from the river. Mica suggested it was the lack of air flow through this area combined with an abundance of mold leaking from the ice. Alex found no comfort in that fact, since it was common knowledge in the scientific field that such ancient spores were known to hold bacteria and viruses for which our modern world had no immunities or defenses.

  Mica realized that she would have to handle her specimen samples with greater care after Alexander mentioned them as a potential biohazard. Whatever dangers we might now face from contamination on this journey were unavoidable, so we tried not to think of our situation getting worse in case any of us fell ill by the lingering effects of some ancient disease. After their
short discussion on the fact, I made it a point to cover my face with my scarf to filter out the bad air. It didn't take long thereafter to notice that the other team members followed my example as they also covered their mouths.

  We made our way through the tunnel, climbing over broken and shattered support columns; each of them decorated with deeply embedded swirls and articulate designs. The tunnel finally opened into a vast chamber where high walls which had once opened to the sky were now blanketed with a thick sheet of ice. Remnants of a city complex lay before us half submerged in cool water. We were left baffled as to how this chamber had also been left untouched by the thick ice, when Logan came up with an explanation.

  "This is sea water," the professor exclaimed as he took a taste after dipping his finger into the pool, "I imagine this entire chamber was once filled with salt water which kept the ice sheet above from penetrating into this cove."

  "It appears to be draining somewhere at the moment," Mica noted the obvious; "we better hope that the roof above retains its integrity while we're here."

  "It might be best not to ring any large bells in the area," Alex suggested to Mica, regarding their hairy experience in the last set of ruins they had visited.

  Looking behind us, we realized that the adjacent passages beside our corridor at the dock had disappeared. Apparently, each one of the tunnels led elsewhere else in this subterranean complex. It was worth noting that at one point in history these ancient cities were once open to the sky; but were now locked under thick sheets of ice. Logan noted that it was believed that this area of the globe had retained a tropical climate, and that the previous location of Antarctica had once been positioned near the edge of the equator. This theory of course, was based on the assertion that the magnetic poles were fixed in a far different location than they were in our present era.

  The water below us was clear with a bluish hue that sank into the depths below. The water was relatively cool, but not entirely unpleasant as one might suspect. There was certainly something strange going on in this hidden civilization which I could not explain; even though the professor tried his best to educate his philosophy on the matter.

  "There is a strange similarity in the design of these buildings," the professor noted, "it appears each of these structures are rimmed with a sort of metal substance with may be emanating a field that keeps the ice at bay."

  We could see what he meant as we observed the preserved city jutting out of the blue lake before us. The edges of the roofs were gilded with the same dark metal alloy we saw being used before. Logan suggested that it was being utilized somehow as an amplifier to direct the magnetic fields. If so, it was an ingenious way to harness natural forces. Logan's theory also proposed that the intensified field was what kept these sections so well preserved despite their age.

  I could grasp the idea Logan was trying to weave into his explanation. Simply put, this strange alloy was applied to critical areas around the dwellings to redirect and concentrate geomagnetic waves. Keeping the encroaching ice at bay was just a beneficial side effect for whatever it had been originally designed to do. Since the continent of Antarctica was once an area of temperate climate in the distant past, the true function of this arcane device was still a mystery.

  A precarious sky bridge connected the tops of these buildings that jutted out of the water; though the lower levels were entirely submerged. Making our way across the crumbing stone catwalks was a risk in itself, for any fall could leave us to drown in the turquoise waters below. Looking over the edge, I thought I saw something disturb the surface of the waters, only to disappear from view. Strange shadows of large bodies flitted under the surface; though their outlines were left blurred and undefined.

  I brought this to Logan's attention, but he seemed unconcerned about it. Neither Mica nor Alex saw what I had seen, and soon lost interest in my sighting. Feeling like a fool, I brought up the back of the group while frequently peering into the waters below. The scaffolding was an intricate highway connected like a maze above the sunken city; which eventually brought us to an abrupt halt.

  "Well, now what?" Mica shrugged as the passage we had chosen ended at a broken section of the walkway. The other side continued onward to a large temple-like structure, but it would take a dangerous jump to make it to the other side. It was more than three meters wide, which was easy enough for me, but I doubted Alex or the Professor would be so nimble as to span the length of the void. Without any safety rope, our choices were limited. We could head back and choose another route from the river, or we would have to risk the vault across.

  It took a great deal of arguing to convince Alexander that the distance was not as far as it seemed; but being weighted down by equipment and our winter coats would make it a challenge to say the least. Since it was my idea to risk it, they voted that I should go first. I took several strides back as they cleared the way; and after building up my courage I took a running leap.

  I landed with a stumble on the other side, and nearly skidded off the edge into the water. The stone walkway groaned under my landing as if it objected to the harsh treatment of my landing. Mica dared to take the jump after me and barely covered the length as she had misjudged her steps. Alex was showing signs of fear and even took off his spectacles to secure in his shirt pocket. He made several false starts before psyching himself into making the jump.

  Mica and I were there to catch him, but he stumbled at the tip of the bridge and barely caught the lip of the edge on our side. He struggled there, kicking his legs in the empty air with a wide-eyed look of fear growing in his eyes.

  "Whoa there, stop struggling; let me take your arm, I've got you!" I advised Alex as he continued to claw for a grip. I laid myself down upon the cracking walkway and edged myself towards him as Logan stood watching helplessly from the other side of the rift. Alex said something unintelligible as he gasped for breath in a moment of panic. I grabbed his glove to get a secure hold of him, and his scared eyes shifted towards mine the split second before he slipped free and off the edge. I laid there with his empty glove still grasped tightly in my hands.

  There was a splash below and in that moment we had thought we had lost him. Sputtering and gagging, Alex resurfaced and began yelling for help. We looked over the edge to see him kicking in the water to keep afloat. He had slipped out of his waterlogged jacked and thermal overalls in an attempt to keep from afloat.

  There were several stone structures of shorter buildings near him, but most where too high out of the water for him to climb. Logan spotted a building farther away from them of a rooftop just cresting the waterline where he could reach and wait for us to rescue him. Alex had taken a good chunk of the edge of the walkway with him when he fell from our side of the rift; leaving the professor uncertain that he could clear the extended distance.

  "Keep going onward, and find a way to reach Alexander, I will find you ...somehow," Logan called across to us.

  I tried to direct Alex where to go, but it became clear he wasn't a world-class swimmer by any means; and began dog-paddling his way over in the general area I was pointing too. As I peered down, I could again seen several strange translucent shadows darting through the waters below; apparently drawn to the disturbance Alex had created as he fought to keep his head above the surface of the waterline.

  Logan backtracked in his attempt to find another way through the maze of catwalks that connected the buildings; while Mica and I tried to find a way to get down to the water level to aid Alexander. Mica noted a sealed shaft on the top of one of the buildings and we smashed it open with our boots. The thin stone cap cracked and fell inward, where we found several rows of handles carved into the structure. I wasn't too confident about the slanted angle of the stone ladder built within which had rungs which were placed abnormally farther apart; making each step hard to reach.

  There was a type of algae slime that coated the surface within, making our grasp even more precarious. Even after climbing down several floors and almost slipping to our dea
ths along the way; I was surprised that Mica couldn't help herself from collecting a specimen sample from the slick residue growing upon the walls once we reach a landing. Turning on our lights, we could make our decorative carvings upon the walls which were now blurred and obscured by the thick layer of slime which had been growing in the darkened structure. We found a staircase circling around the inner edge, but even the steps themselves seemed oddly out of proportion.

  We eventually made it down to the waterline and found a series of pillars which opened into the blue lake outside the building. Catching my balance on the edge the window, I called out to Alex as I looked around for signs of him. Skirting the building to look out from all sides, we finally found him standing on a rooftop which was barely under the waterline; leaving him now standing in water up to his ankles. Instead of answering us, he seemed mesmerized by something within the water lurking just off the edge of his sunken oasis.

  "Alex, swim over to us, we'll help you up!" I shouted to him, but only got a short worried glance from him in reply, "What are you doing? We're right here!" I waved to grab his attention.

  "There's something in the water..." Alex muttered back through his chattering teeth. He had lost his thermal gear somewhere in the water; so it was important to dry him off as soon as possible. Even mild hypothermia could be fatal if it wasn't remedied.

  "What the hell are you talking about?" Mica called back to him over my shoulder. From our position near the level of the pool the reflections in the water hid what lurked beneath its surface.

  "I, I don't know, but it's big!" Alexander mumbled back as he clung to himself, rubbing his shoulders for warmth.

  "What is he talking about?" Mica repeated towards me, but his testimony had confirmed what I had suspected. I had actually seen something moving through the blue waters.

  Half a dozen meters from him, something disturbed the surface of the still lake. It had no real form I could characterize except that it appeared like a semi-transparent balloon. Slowly, it submerged back under the surface to disappear once again.