Free Strontium-90 by Vaughn Heppner Page B

wondered who would build here. How could they build in a land of eternal ice? Or was there some distant past when it had been warm enough here for grass, cattle and fields of grain?
    Drifting voices bade him to glance back . The hunters pointed at the ruins. Did dread fill their superstitious souls? Christianity had come to Greenland in the 1000s, but Henri had heard the hunters curse before, calling out to Odin and Thor.
    He stumbled against the headless statue . The head lay at the monument’s base, with the face pressed against snow. He saw by the cleaner surface of the neck that it had only recently been broken off. Had the earlier rumble done that?
    Henri pressed his mittens against the stone as sweat trickled under his collar . The statue wore marble garments of a type he’d never seen before. He squinted at the ice underneath his boots. In the crystalline depths, he saw paved streets.
    He shuffled his feet . The creak of frozen leather was an ominous sound. He climbed a frosty bank and saw a dark opening, a jag in the ice. He stumbled to it and felt heat waft up against his cheeks. He hesitated but a moment. Then he slid onto his belly and swung his legs down into the opening. He dropped into the warm trench and saw ancient walls embedded in the ice. There were serpentine images chiseled upon those ruins, some of which spewed what seemed to be imaginary fire.
    Henri thudded onto dirt . It was iron-hard, permanently frozen. He tripped over an old cobblestone, and he ducked into an icy-white cavern. The heat was greater here, a steady draft. It darkened as he advanced. He slid his feet as a precaution. Then he came upon a hole. Heat billowed upward from it, welcome warmness. This heat had no fetid odor like a polar bear’s den. He probed carefully and found steps that led down. In the darkness, he took one stair at a time. He came to a landing and blindly followed the waft of heat. There were other passages. In the murk, he felt dark openings. Those were frigid. He followed the warmth and in time heard a hiss, a faint plop.
    Did he come upon a dragon’s den ? The idea was preposterous. Then he noticed faint red light. His heart thudded, and the heat that he breathed, instead of icy air, added to his fear. He took turns in the dark passageway, twists in the corridor and heard from far behind the voices of men.
    He plunged ahead . The red glow increased, and from it came burbling sounds. With the added illumination, he saw that he wasn’t in ice but a cavern of stone. A last turn brought him before a high-ceilinged vault. He halted in astonishment.
    In the center of an immense area was a hole from which glowed redness and from which heat waves hazed . He’d seen the volcanoes in Iceland and heard of their eruptions. This appeared to be a shaft into a lava bed. Around the glow and scattered about the cave lay vast bones, colossal and titanic. Henri wandered past heaps of what appeared to be ancient breastplates and swords rusted beyond use. He saw great earthen jars mossy with age. Other jars rose above him and were made of a shiny substance that showed lovely beings with pointy ears. What most astonished him were bowls of green brass in which lay heaps of rubies, sapphires, emeralds and opals. Beside them were broken shields and rags.
    He seized a ruby as big as a robin’s egg . It gleamed with a strange light. It fired his soul as awe mingled with avarice.
    Henri cocked his head . He heard voices, the scuffle of boots!
    He hurried to the far edge of the vault and crouched behind a huge jar, trying to devise a stratagem.
    In time seven hunters tramped into the cavern of lava-light.
    “By Odin’s beard!” one cried.
    “It’s a dragon hoard,” another said.
    “Like Sigurd and Fafnir,” a third said.
    “Evil treasure then, brothers. Nothing but ill comes from cursed dragon gold.”
    “Bah ! Why can’t this be a dwarf’s hold? It’s under the Earth isn’t it? Look at that light. Dwarfs would build a