Forgotten Love: An Action-Packed Adventure Romance (The Forgotten Chronicles) (6 page)

It had to.

Their breath misted in the air. The temperature was well below freezing. The water kept from turning into ice only because of how fast it was moving. If he and Gillian didn't move, they'd be in danger of turning to ice themselves.

The cavern turned into a passage with walls that were tall and curving. The surface was rough and uneven and broken up in places, but they kept going.

A sound that had started off as a whisper began to grow louder. It was a continuous hissing, a sound of steam escaping through an exhaust pipe, or an angry Nidhogg.

"Do you...hear that?" Gillian asked him. "What is it?"

"Well, I'm betting it's not Minik's monster. Come on, let's go see."

After walking what Theo estimated was at least ten minutes, probably more, the cavern began widening out. The walls that had pressed in on them began to get further and further apart and it was slightly warmer. The ice on their faces turned to water. Theo kept them close to the wall on their right, as a guide.

And then suddenly they entered a wide underground grotto.

It was a huge cave, with massive rock pillars that went from the floor up to the high ceiling, thinner in the middle than at the base or the top, like conjoined stalactites and stalagmites. They stood like support columns everywhere, and Theo couldn't see how far back the grotto went because of the pillars being in his way. The hissing noise was loudest here, echoing around the chamber. And everywhere veins of purple and blue fluorescent minerals streaked through the otherwise black rock.

Theo shut off his flashlight, just to see what would happen. The world they now stood in was lit by a soft purple glow. The crystals radiated light from some inner source, giving plenty of illumination to see by. "Interesting," he said.

"Yes," Gillian chattered, hitting her fist weakly against his chest. "It is p-positively incredible. K-keep m-moving."

He could tell she had to be close to the end of whatever incredible reserve she was drawing on. It wasn't freezing anymore but they were still in danger of hypothermia. He had an idea about what that constant hissing sound they were hearing might be. If he was right, they might just have a chance. And if he was wrong...

Well, if he was wrong they were most likely going to die here.

He weaved them through the rock columns, some of them so close together that he and Gillian had to go around them, some so widely spaced a semi-truck could have fit through. Everywhere, the fluorescent rock glowed and gave them light. The noise got louder still as they continued on and the air noticeably warmer. The grotto showed no signs of ending.

And then, in a space clear of the heavy support columns, he found what he had hoped to see.

"Oh, thank God," he whispered.

"What is that?" Gillian said.

"Our salvation," he said to her.

"Wh-wh-where—"

"Gillian, don't speak. Just trust me, okay?"

She followed along next to him with shuffling steps...

Chapter 7

THEY STEPPED INTO
a rock clearing where Theo directed her stand in one specific spot—right where a natural vent blew currents of heated air up from the floor of the cave.

"We need to get out of these wet clothes," Theo told her and began to strip down.

To his surprise, she didn't argue.

The two of them hurried out of their soaking wet clothing, down to their underwear—Gillian's, a nice set of Victoria's Secret. Theo's, a pair of well-traveled boxers.

They both studiously ignored each other's nearly naked bodies standing deep under the surface of Greenland. The air washed up and over his skin, up his legs, his groin and his chest. The heat of it seeped into his flesh until he was sure he could feel ice crystals melting in his blood. It felt better than anything had in a long time.

Gillian ran her hands over her bare skin, working warmth back into herself. "Oh my God," she moaned. "This is heavenly! How did you know these were here?"

He forced himself to turn away from her, to keep his eyes from seeing...her. "I had no idea they were here. I just kept moving. Sometimes that's all you can do."

The force of the air tickled over him, touching and warming sensitive areas of his nearly naked body. As his blood began to flow again back into his extremities, his muscles flexed easier and his fingers and toes tingled and he stood there enjoying it. This place was like a steam room, stimulating him, arousing him...

He opened his eyes to find Gillian staring at him, a curious look on her face, and her mouth parted ever so slightly. He hadn't realized how close he was standing to her until now. The purple luminescence of the cavern brushed her skin in deep, dark tones, layering shadows around the curves of her breasts and her hips...

"Uh, how are you feeling?" he asked, making his eyes stay on her face.

Her face reddened. Was it only from the warm air? "I'm feeling much better," she answered, and seemed to be making an effort to maintain eye contact. "Much better."

Partially thawed, Theo needed to get his mind on something besides Gillian's luscious flesh before his own body reacted and made things more awkward than they already were. At a glance, there were fourteen ventilation holes here, the hot air rising all the way to the surface where it escaped through cracks in the rocky Greenland landscape. Underneath where they now stood must be some kind of natural heat sink or lava flow. There was an active volcano in Iceland, he knew, but were there volcanoes in Greenland?

Nope. He was still thinking about the nearly naked lady. Theo moved away and picked up their discarded clothing to stretch across some of the shorter stalagmites to dry. As he turned his back to her he had the distinct feeling that her gaze was caressing his ass.

"So I figure we'll stay here until we're good and dry," he said, "and then we've got to try to find a way out..."

"Thank you," Gillian said.

"I figure the clothes will dry faster this way."

She laughed, softly, in a very feminine way. "I mean for saving my life."

"Seemed fair. I put your life in danger in the first place."

"No. I didn't have to come."

"Well. Your boyfriend kind of asked you to, didn't he?"

"I don't do everything he asks me to do..."

Theo turned and looked at her. "But you did do this," he said.

"Yes, I did. Do you do whatever your girlfriend tells you to do?"

The change in subject caught him off guard, and he had to switch gears. "Well, no. I mean, I don't have a girlfriend. Not right now."

"Hmm. Then what's wrong?"

How did the conversation turn to this? "Nothing is wrong," he said, perhaps too defensively because he saw her eyebrow go up. "I'm just not attached at this moment."

"So what's our next move?"

Theo wasn't quite sure how to answer that. "Well, since you have Saul..."

"Our next move to get out of here, you idiot!" Gillian exclaimed.

"I was kidding," Theo lied. "After our clothes are dry we'll take a walk. We follow where the cavern continues on."

It took the better part of another hour for their clothes to dry enough to put them back on without worrying about contracting hypothermia. They dressed in awkward silence.

Chapter 8

THEIR PACKS WERE
still waterlogged. Theo opened his to check the contents and ended up leaving most of it behind as useless. The GPS unit, the cell phones, and a lot of the gear were just so much dead weight now. He left it all there on the floor, and then threw the pack over his one shoulder. It was a lot lighter now.

Gillian went through her pack as well, being a little more conservative with what she dumped out. Still, he could tell she had less to carry too when she stood up again, facing him with her head tilted to one side. "So, professor. Now what?"

Theo pointed deeper into the cavern away from the water. "This way," he said and began to walk.

"What makes you think this leads somewhere?" She followed along at his side, as they went further back into the towering rock columns.

"Everything leads somewhere. The only question is, will it be a useful somewhere, or will it be a dead end?"

She grimaced. "You couldn't have used a better term? Something without the word 'dead' in it?"

"Uh, will it be the end of the line?" he offered.

"That's not a lot better. You kind of suck at this, you know that?"

"I'm not used to having a partner."

They walked on for some time, and the walls of the cavern closed in again, the columns and the grotto left behind. The walls narrowed down to become a rounded, scalloped tube no more than ten feet in diameter. They stepped carefully, hands against the walls for support. And as they went, the purple and blue luminescent rock gradually disappeared, leaving them in the dark once more.

Theo flipped on his flashlight. The waterproof, shock resistant plastic had survived everything so far, and didn't fail him now. It showed the way forward as the tunnel curved away to the left.

"Do you think this was carved out by the melting ice water from the surface too?" Gillian asked him, her voice hushed in wonder.

"Over centuries, yes. This particular series of tunnels and caverns probably existed long before humans ever came to this island."

"The first Europeans didn't colonize Greenland until, what? Almost one thousand A.D.?"

He nodded, wheels turning in his head. "Yes. There were several Inuit cultures living in Greenland before that, but the Norwegians came to Greenland about then. And they stayed here until the fifteenth century, when all contact with them was lost until nearly three hundred years later..."

He stopped still in his tracks.

"What is it?" she asked him, looking ahead of them and seeing nothing but more dark tunnel.

Theo shook himself and started walking again. "Nothing. I was thinking. Sorry, I'm used to talking these things out with myself, stopping and thinking, that sort of thing. Solitary stuff."

She laughed. "You need to get out more."

"You mean, more out than this?"

"Yes. Definitely more out than this."

"So tell me about Istanbul."

"What?"

"Tell me more about Istanbul," he repeated. "You started to tell me about it on the plane ride here, and I kind of, well..."

"Ignored me?" she teased.

"I was going to say set it aside for later."

She snickered at his choice of words. "Sure, okay. Well. I was in Istanbul two years ago, looking for Neolithic artifacts in a new dig site in Yenikapi."

"Stone age artifacts? I've heard there have been a number of finds there. Kind of threw the whole concept of when the place was first settled upside down." He felt his foot slip with the next step that he took. There was still water everywhere.

"Stone age, yes," she answered him. "But not like what's been found before. Our team found writing tablets. Actual written language, dating back to eight or nine thousand B.C., as near as we could figure."

"Wait a second. The Kafri stones? You? You found the Kafri stones?"

She took ahold of his arm to steady herself as the tunnel started to run at a downward slant. "Well, I'd like to take the credit for it all, but I was there with a team. I was there to supervise."

"Saul sent you there?"

"Yes. He's slowly letting me learn the business. I've done a few solo jobs. Nothing like this, though."

The flashlight probed ahead into darkness.

"Saul had better be careful," he told her.

The way ahead became just so much black, even in the beam of light.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because if he's not careful," he said, inching forward a little at a time, "he's going to lose you. You'll outgrow him. Be careful here. I think we're at our destination."

"Our destination? We have a destination?"

He leaned forward, getting down on one knee to peer ahead. He was right. The tunnel opened out again, and this time the chamber they had come to was immense.

"Look for yourself." He pulled her down with him, holding as tightly to her as she was to him.

The end of the tunnel they had been walking in was set high up on a wall in a huge chamber that was lit in the center by sunlight beaming in through hundreds of tiny holes far above. The effect was magical.

"Wow," Gillian breathed.

"Yeah, wow," echoed Theo.

They were looking at the remains of a settlement. Crumbling rock structures, roads, decaying wooden carts with large round wheels. All of it revealed in eerie shafts of light and shadow that played over buildings that time had long forgotten.

It was still a bit dim on their side of the chamber. Shining his flashlight down Theo saw the floor of the space around them, some six feet below. It was flat and smooth black rock.

Theo helped Gillian jump down from the lip of the tunnel to the floor below and they made their way to the buildings, and began exploring.

"Incredible," Gillian said in a hushed voice.

Most of the buildings were in near perfect condition. The cold and solitude of this place had delayed the process of decay, even if it hadn't been halted entirely. Stone walls still stood in place, interior walls proudly stood to support roofs, and inside several buildings that turned out to be homes there were wooden tables and chairs and other furniture. It was a well preserved ghost town from another era in time.

Theo picked up a soapstone bowl from where it sat on a table inside one home, faded designs in red and blue decorating its exterior. A fine dust, almost like dirt, had pooled to the bottom of the bowl. Next to the bowl on the rough wooden table were a fork and a knife, both with bone handles. Made from antlers, most likely.

A pile of animal bones, goats and sheep judging by the few skulls that Theo picked up to examine, were piled neatly behind one of the larger buildings. A barn, maybe. Or a butcher shop.

Most of the building still had their wooden doors on them. Gillian pointed out one, its top hinge rusted through and the door leaning at an awkward angle, held in place only by the other hinge and a lock made of animal bone.