Douglas Preston: Riptide

Hatch held up his hand in response. After a moment's hesitation, Clay reached down and Hatch staggered to his feet.

"Thank you," he gasped. "You saved my life."

Clay waved his hand in a gesture of irritation.

"This was the tunnel my brother was killed in. And those are his bones."

Clay's eyes widened. "Oh," he said, moving the light quickly away. "I'm very sorry."

"Did you see anyone else on the island?" Hatch asked urgently. "A young woman in a slicker? Dark hair?"

Clay shook his head.

Hatch closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath. Then he pointed down the newly exposed tunnel. "This leads to the base of the Water Pit. Captain Neidelman's in the treasure chamber. We have to stop him."

Clay frowned. "Stop him from what?"

"He's about to open the casket that contains St. Michael's Sword."

A look of suspicion darted across the minister's face.

A series of racking coughs seized Hatch. "I've learned the sword's deadly. Radioactive."

Clay crossed his arms.

"It could kill us all, and maybe half the town of Stormhaven, if it ever got out."

Clay remained silent, staring.

"Look," said Hatch, swallowing hard. "You were right. We never should have been digging for this treasure. But it's too late for that now. I can't stop him alone."

A new look suddenly crossed the minister's face; a look Hatch found hard to interpret. Clay's expression began to change, brighten, as if his face was suffused with inward light. "I think I'm beginning to understand," he said, almost to himself.

"Neidelman sent a man to kill me," Hatch said. "He's become unhinged."

"Yes," said Clay, suddenly fervent. "Yes, of course he has." "All we can hope now is that we're not too late." Hatch stepped carefully around the litter of bones. Rest easy, Johnny, he said under his breath. Then he led the way down the narrow, sloping tunnel, Woody Clay following closely behind.

Chapter 57

Gerard Neidelman knelt before the casket, motionless, for what seemed an infinity of time. The iron bands that surrounded it had been carefully cut away, one by one. As the precise white light of the acetylene torch freed each band, it had fallen away through the slots in the metal floor. Now only a single band remained, separated from the lock of the casket but clinging to its side by a thick coating of rust.

The lock had been cut, the seals broken. The sword was his to claim.

And yet Neidelman remained where he was, his fingers on the lid. Every sense seemed magnified. He felt alive, fulfilled, in a way he had never dreamed possible. It was as if his entire past life was now just a colorless landscape; as if he had lived but to prepare for this moment.

He inhaled slowly, then again. A slight tremor—perhaps the leaping of his heart—seemed to course through him. And then, with reverential slowness, he opened the lid.

The interior of the box lay in shadow, but within Neidelman could see a faint coruscation of gemstones. The long-hidden interior exhaled the warm, fragrant scent of myrrh.

The sword itself lay on perfumed velvet. He reached inside and placed his hand on the hilt, his fingers sliding smoothly between the beaten gold basket and grip. The blade itself was hidden, sheathed in a magnificent gold- and gem-encrusted scabbard.

Carefully, he drew the scabbarded sword from the box. The velvet on which the sword lay dissolved instantly to a cloud of purple dust.

He raised the sword—noting its heaviness with astonishment—and brought it carefully into the light.

The scabbard and hilt were of Byzantine workmanship, fashioned of heavy gold, dating to perhaps the eighth or ninth century, an exceedingly rare, rapierlike design. The repousse and filigree were astonishingly delicate; in his vast studies, Neidelman had never seen finer.

He raised the scabbard and turned it to catch the light, feeling his heart almost stop as he did so. The face of the scabbard was thick with cabochon sapphires of a depth, color, and clarity that seemed impossible. He wondered what earthly force could bring such rich color to a gemstone.

He turned his attention to the hilt. The knuckle bow and quillion sported four astonishing rubies, each equal to the famous De Long Star, which Neidelman knew was considered the most perfect gemstone in existence. But embedded at the bottom of the pommel was a great double-star ruby that far surpassed the De Long in size, color, and symmetry. The stone, Neidelman mused as he turned the hilt in the light, had no equal on earth— none.

Decorating the ricasso, grip rings, and counterguard were a dazzling array of sapphires in a rainbow of colors—blacks, oranges, midnight blues, whites, greens, pinks, and yellows, every one a perfect double star. Once again, never had he seen such rich, deep colors. Not in his most febrile dreams had he imagined such gemstones. Each was utterly unique, each would command any price on the market. But to have them all set together in such a singular piece of Byzantine goldwork was inconceivable. Such an object had never existed in the world, nor could it exist again; it was without peer.

With an absolute clarity of mind, Neidelman could see that his vision of the sword had not been misplaced. If anything, he had underestimated its power. This was an artifact that could change the world.

Now, at last, the moment had come. The hilt and the scabbard were extraordinary: the blade itself must be beyond conception. Grasping the hilt in his right hand, and the scabbard in his left, he began to draw out the sword with exquisite slowness.

The flood of intense pleasure changed first to perplexity, then shock, then wonderment. What emerged from the scabbard was a pitted, flattened, deformed piece of metal. It was scaly and mottled, oxidized to a strange, purplish-black color, with inclusions of some white substance. He drew it to its length and held it upright, gazing at the misshapen blade—indeed, the word "blade" hardly described it at all. He wondered, remotely, what it could mean. Over the years his mind had imagined this moment a hundred, even a thousand, times. Each time, the sword had looked different.

But never had it looked like this.

He reached out and stroked the rough metal, wondering at its curious warmth. Perhaps the sword had been caught in a fire and melted, then refitted with a new hilt. But what kind of fire would do this? And what kind of metal was it? Not iron—it would have rusted orange—and not silver, which turned black when oxidized. Neither platinum nor gold oxidized at all. And it was far, far too heavy to be tin or any of the baser metals.

What metal oxidized purple?

He turned the sword again, and passed it through the air, and as he did so he recalled the Christian legend of the archangel St. Michael.

An idea formed within him.

Several times, late at night, he had dreamed the sword buried at the base of the Water Pit was, quite literally, the sword of legend: the sword of St. Michael himself, conqueror of Satan. In the dream, when he gazed upon the sword, he'd suffered a blinding conversion, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. He had taken a curious kind of comfort in the fact that his rich imagination always faltered at this point. Nothing he could conceive was extraordinary enough to justify the veneration and dread that filled the ancient documents mentioning the sword.

But if St. Michael—the Archangel of the Sword— had fought Satan, his weapon would have been scorched and melted in the course of battle. Such a sword would be unlike any other.

As was the thing he now held in his hands.

He gazed at it anew, wonder and fear and uncertainty mingling within him. If this was such a sword—and what other explanation could there be?—then it was evidence, it was proof, of another world; of something beyond the material. The resurrection of such a sword would be a spectacular event.