The Forgotten Land (14 page)

“Why?”
The man asked again before falling to his knees, with his, hands together in prayer.
His eyes now showed either fear or respect, Steve could not tell which.

“Could
you be the Tuatha? Are they returning to the world? Oh please let it be so,
Father God,” the man said, turning his face to the skies. “Let it be so.”

*
* * * *

“Steve.”
A hand shook him by the shoulder.

“Yeah,”
Steve muttered, his mind filled with the strange dream.

“Your
turn for piquet.” It was Matt’s voice.

“Okay,”
he said, taking the night vision goggles. He put them on and winced against the
bright green light. His eyes began to water. Lying down, he took up the Minimi
and stared down the sights towards the exit.

A
voice echoed in his head. It was a deep voice filled with suppressed hope and
excitement. “Could you be the Tuatha?”

The
dream made no sense and left him curious. He had only ever dreamed with such
vividness as a child and he felt it strange he should do so now after all these
years. Who, or what, was the Tuatha? Who was the old man?

Steve
decided it was a dream brought on by exhaustion and stress. There was no point
wasting energy analysing a meaningless dream. He cast an eye over his three
motionless comrades sprawled on the ground as sleep held them in its warm
embrace.

Looking
back to the exit, Steve caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape shimmering
to his right. Through the green haze he could not make out what it was with any
clarity.

He
did, however, note there were some sort of markings above the shape. Steve
quietly walked towards the small, shimmering object.

What
Steve found strange was that rocks usually only appeared through night vision
as insignificant black objects. But this rock was beaming with light brighter
than the moon, or at least it seemed that way. He could not believe how he had
missed it on his first scout of the cavern. He took off the goggles but could
see nothing. The curtain of the cave’s blackness closed around him, so that
although he thought he knew where the exit was located he could not be sure.
Putting the goggles back on, he once again saw the light the rock seemed to
emit. Kneeling beside it but continuing to point his weapon towards the exit,
he picked it up and rolled it around in his hand. It was a crystal, not a rock.

The
crystal was as long as his hand and about half the width of his palm. Its edges
were perfectly rounded and the light coming from it seemed to pulse slightly,
almost as if it had a life of its own. Its own heartbeat. Steve checked the
exit, but saw and heard nothing. He turned and looked at the wall above where
the crystal had been and saw a deep impression in the rock, at head height,
that was the same shape and size of the crystal. Below the indentation were
inscriptions in a language he had never seen before. The letters were composed
of jagged, straight strokes, with no curves. They seemed primitive yet
strangely artistic.

Tossing
the crystal in the air and catching it Steve got to his feet. A frown crossed
his face as he looked at the shaped crystal in his hand. He moved quietly back
to his position and lay down, pointing the Minimi once again at the exit.

CHAPTER
7

“What
the fuck is it?” asked Scott the next morning, switching on his torch. There
had not been a sound all night and the soldiers were confident that their
enemy, if they were even close, would not be able to hear their voices from this
deep underground.

“Oh,
for Christ’s sake, man, bit of warning woulda been nice!” said Matt wincing
against the sudden light.

“Sorry,
mate,” said Scott turning to shine the torch directly into Matt’s face.

“Piss
off,” Matt laughed, pushing the torch away.

“I
dunno,” replied Steve. The torch was now directed back to Steve’s open palm,
which held the jet black, rectangular crystal. It was polished to a high sheen
and the edges were perfectly rounded. The crystal seemed to absorb the light
thrown from the torch, rather than reflect it.

“Turn
the light off mate,” Steve said. “All right, who’s got the gogs?”

“Me,”
replied Matt. “I just put some new batteries in.”

“Put
‘em on.”

There
was a pause and then a click as the goggles powered up.

“Shit!”
Matt said. “How the hell? Shit, pass the gogs round, have a look.”

In
the pitch black of the cavern, no one could see their hand in front of their
face, but with the goggles on, the crystal in Steve’s palm emitted a powerful
glow. On closer inspection the light thrown from the crystal was pulsating
slightly, almost like a heartbeat.

They
switched the goggles off and Scott flicked on the torch. The crystal was once
again black, although it continued to somehow absorb the torchlight.

“Where’d
you find it?” asked Will.

“Over
there. Come and have a look at this.” Steve led them to the etchings in the
wall.

“Seems
it’ll fit into that indentation?” said Scott. There were no chip marks or
gouges in the indentation to suggest how it was made; it was smooth, flawless,
perfect, almost as if it couldn’t have been made by human hands.

“Wonder
what this says?” asked Will, passing his hand over the strange, letters. Steve
spotted what appeared to be an 'R' amongst the sentence, but even this letter
had been cut with straight lines. The letters had a runic look to them.

The
soldiers fell silent as they looked at the unfamiliar lettering that had
probably come from another time. Historical artefacts always fascinated Steve.
Something about this seemed almost magical. But there was something else that
he had missed. Below the indentation were some other letters that appeared to
be Arabic.

“Well
let’s see what happens,” said Steve with a shrug. He placed the crystal into
the indentation in the wall.

“No
don’t,” said Scott, in mock fear.

Steve
pushed the crystal into place and carefully took his hand away, expecting the
rock to fall. Instantly there was a grinding sound, a click and then the
crystal slammed into the wall with a dull thud so that it was flush with the
wall. The jet black object looked more like a tile on the face of the cave than
the crystal it had been moments before.

“That
was….kind of fuckin’ creepy,” muttered Scott, holding the torch beam on the
motionless crystal.

“You’re
tellin’ me,” said Steve quietly.

“This
is like something out of Indiana Jones,” said Will.

“Indiana,”
Matt’s voice trailed away. “This is some weird shit, Will, I’m on edge here,
mate. What made that crystal slide into the wall?"

“Want
me to read you a story snookums?” asked Scott. “Come on,” he slapped Matt on
the shoulder. “Grow some balls, mate. Time for breakfast.”

“None
of you bastards are taking this serious, are you?” asked Matt.

Scott
shrugged. “A crystal slid into the wall and made a bit of a noise. Shit, you’re
normally as calm as a brain surgeon in theatre, man, what’s gotten into you?
Forget it Matt, we’ll deal with anything that comes up.”

“Yeah,
guess so,” muttered Matt, grabbing the torch from Scott and shining it at the
silent, unmoving crystal.

Steve
had already sat down and taken out a packet of dry biscuits he had kept in his
pocket. The biscuits had been crushed into tiny pieces in the fire fight, but
he crunched them happily anyway.

“I’ve
got cheddar cheese for breaky,” announced Will. “Oi, Matt, slip out and cook us
some bacon and eggs, mate.”

“Half
your bloody luck,” replied Matt. “Muesli bar for me.”

Most
of their rations, apart from several small snacks, were still in the Land
Rover. Scott had managed to salvage two single man ration packs, and that would
last four of them two days if they were careful. After breakfast, they would
have to try to dig their way out to the surface and make an escape. If Lady
Luck held them in any regard, the enemy had assumed they were dead. Steve did
not relish the thought, but there was only one way out and that was the way
they’d come in.

After
breakfast eaten Steve took a tiny LED torch and tried to lever the crystal out
of the wall with a pocket knife but it would not move. He shrugged and turned
to the others.

“While
you guys eat, I’m goin’ to have a look at the Land Rover. I might bring some
more stuff down,” he said. Holding his weapon under the crook of his arm, he
set off towards the exit with the torch. He was about to make his way up the
steep incline, when there was a deep, reverberating explosion that shook the
cave violently. Small chunks of rock and streams of dirt fell from the ceiling.
Steve was thrown to the floor, the torch crashed to the ground and went out.

The
sound echoed into silence and the cave became still once more. It had sounded
like a bass drum, amplified a hundred fold.

“You
right, mate?” he heard Scott ask.

“Yeah,
you?”

“We’re
okay,” Matt replied. He had shrugged into his first aid pack and was tightening
the straps on his shoulders. It was better to have the pack with him so he
could immediately access it if someone was injured.

“What
the hell was that?” Will asked. “It sounded like a friggin’—”

The
cave shook again, but this time the noise did not fade. Their surroundings continued
to shake and shudder. A chunk of rock the size of a man broke from the ceiling
and slammed into the ground, smashing into pieces. Pulling the rifle into his
shoulder, Steve lay prone. He clicked the safety catch to fire and directed the
barrel towards the exit. Behind him his hand groped around for the torch and
eventually found it. He tapped it against the ground. The bulb flickered and
died before beaming back into life and flooding half the cave with light.
Pointing it towards the exit he could see nothing remarkable. The violent
shaking and deafening noise continued and dust and chips of rock streamed from
the cave ceiling.

“Bloody
hell! Look!”

Steve
looked around. The crystal was glowing a dull, powerful blue and the
inscription carved into the wall burned bright red. The shuddering noise of
grinding stone filled the cavern and then abruptly silence followed. The light
thrown from the crystal and inscription faded away. Steve could hear someone
breathing close by, but otherwise the cave was once more silent and still.

“Everyone
all right?” asked Steve. “Yup,” was the response.

Steve
knew that the other soldiers were in the same mindset as him. They were lying
prone with their weapons ready to fire. Something was happening and the men
were not sure what it was. Whatever would happen next, they were ready. Or so
they thought.

A
sudden cold breeze blasted around the chamber and was gone just as quickly as
it arrived. Steve’s torch suddenly failed. Then it happened. Steve suppressed a
gasp as his stomach lurched into his throat. It seemed the floor had given way.
They were falling, falling, with cold, bitter wind lashing at their clothes. He
tried to look around but could see nothing, everything was dark and apart from
the blistering howl of the wind in his ears, he could hear nothing.

The
skin of his hand stung as something slapped against his palm. His fingers
instinctively closed around the object. It was the crystal he had pushed into
the wall! It was warm now, almost hot.

Then
came a voice, distant and muffled, as if it came from inside a cardboard box.
“—public in general that forces have commenced combat and combat support
operations.”

Hang
on, thought Steve. That’s John Howard isn’t it? Steve tried to yell out to the
others but nothing came out. He tried again. His mouth opened to form the
words, but no sound came out. It was like he was living inside a nightmare. He
continued to fall, concerned that the other members of the patrol had either
been injured or worse.

“This
aggression will not stand.” This time it was George Bush
Senior’s
voice.

“—can
do for you, but what you can do for your country!”

Then
came a strong British accent. “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on
the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall
fight in the hills; we shall never surrender—”

The
falling sensation stopped and all returned to what seemed normal.

“You
guys okay?” It was Will’s voice.

“Yeah
I’m fine,” replied Steve, relieved that at least one of the others was still
with him. He tapped his torch but nothing happened.

“These
night vision goggles must be broken,” said Scott.

“Mum?”
It was a child’s voice. “I’m scared.” The accent was British, it sounded like a
London accent.

“What
the fuck you doing here, kid?” Scott’s voice boomed out loudly and it was
obvious to Steve that the soldier was frightened. He suppressed a smile.

“It’s
okay, love.” This time a woman’s voice. “It’s okay.”

He
noticed a faint wailing sound, a siren he realised, and in the distance the
deep burr of many engines. They sounded like hundreds of planes.

“What’s
happening?” asked Matt.

“Dunno,
mate, but my trigger finger’s starting to get pretty itchy,” replied Scott in a
shaky voice.

The
roar of the engines was almost all they could hear. Intermingled with the noise
was the dull thudding of, of what? Machineguns! No not machineguns,
anti-aircraft guns!

Boom,
boom, boom, boom, an anti-aircraft gun nearby had started firing skyward. Steve
still could not see anything, but he thought he could detect distant shouts of
a gun commander, giving elevation and fire control orders. It sounded like a
20mm gun judging by the methodical lack of speed at which each bullet was shot
skyward.

He
could hear the child crying and immediately thought of Judy, Kathy and Brent.
Fatherly instincts overcame him and he wanted to find the child and comfort
her.

“It’s
okay,” he heard the mother say, fear strong in her voice.

The
floor opened up once more and Steve fell. All went silent and the cold wind
buffeted and pulled at him.

“Damn
colonial bastards,” the voice had a posh English accent.

“How
many do we have against us?” “Near 30,000 French knights, Sire.” “30,000!” The
voice faded and Steve continued to fall. Once again the sensation stopped. Everything
was black, but he could hear a quiet crackling noise. An image flashed through
his mind of an ancient castle with torches in brackets on the wall. The
torches’ flames crackled and gave weak light to the room, where a large group
of men stood. Most of them were soldiers wearing polished silver chain mail and
their helmets reflecting the light thrown from the torches like a mirror.

Amongst
them stood a man, with long brown hair. He was dressed in rags and he looked
dirty. Blood was seeping from a wound at his temple. The prisoner, for it was
obvious that is what he was, had been cuffed and wore a blindfold around his
head. The man was tall, very tall. Wait, thought Steve. No, he was only about
six foot one, whereas the others around him averaged at about five and a half
feet, if that.

They
all stood before a man dressed in a flowing black silk robe. He wore a dark hat
that moulded itself to his skull and which gave his pale eyes a complete lack
of emotion. The man was sitting in a booth nearly five feet high. A small set
of stairs led up to where the man sat.

The
image disappeared as quickly as it had come and once again Steve found himself
in the dark.

“Anyone
there?” he asked. “Yeah,” said Scott.

“Still
here…I think,” replied Matt.

“This
is crap,” said Will. “What the hell’s happenin—”

“What
have you to say for thyself?” The deep authoritative voice cut Will off.

Silence
followed as the Australians listened. Steve thought it would have been good to be
able to see something. Then another image appeared in his mind. The tall
prisoner looked up towards the man in black, who nodded. The blindfold was
quickly ripped from the prisoner’s face.

“Thou
art a traitor to thy king and thy country!” continued the judge. “Thou hast
broken thy allegiance to thy king! Thou hast killed his soldiers and sacked his
cities! Thou hast plundered churches and dealt death to ministers of religion
like some Viking pirate!”