Atlantis Stolen (Sam Reilly Book 3) Read online

  Atlantis Stolen

  By

  Christopher Cartwright

  Copyright 2015 by Christopher Cartwright

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved.

  Thanks very much to Cheryl my editor, and Kris, my beta-reader!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Prologue

  Dutch Trading Post, 1638.

  The barren winter landscape was desolate in its beauty. While the sun approached its zenith, it did little to stop the cold stinging his weather-worn face while he worked. Albert Olsen filled his bucket with another shovel of sludge and then turned to climb the slippery crest of the muddy bank. Once on the ridge, he didn’t have far to walk before he could dump its contents down the other side.

  From there, Olsen saw the other islands.

  A strange mixture of mud and ice stood surrounded by a river whose partially frozen mouth looked as wide as an ocean when it thawed. Not that he paid much attention to any of it as he returned to fill yet another bucket.

  It was strenuous and tediously boring work, but it needed to be done so the boats could survive. And if they didn’t, the little outcrop certainly wouldn’t.

  So the sea canals needed to be built.

  They had begun as small ditches used to drain the marshland so basic farming could meet the needs of the settlement. But protecting the ships had warranted the effort to widen and deepen them to accommodate small boats, or ships at high tide.

  Wrapped in a pair of thick animal hides, fur hat, and boots, even a day’s shoveling did little to allay his cold. The sort of cold that sunk into your bones and didn’t come out again long into the spring. Not that it bothered him much. He’d spent the last four winters working at the post, laboring for the master engineer. In another year, he would have repaid his obligation and would be allowed to return home.

  He dumped another bucket over the ridge.

  He’d seen that view for the past four years. He would leave after completing his obligatory service to his master, Hank Worthington, who’d been hired to build large amounts of the government’s sea structures and buildings. At the age of 22, Olsen had earned enough money that he could now afford to return home and marry Frajia Clausen, the girl from his childhood dreams – that was, if she’d kept her promise.

  If they let me leave.

  Young laborers were hard to come by, and the council of traders would offer tremendous rewards to those who would stay on. If not, they would threaten tremendous suffering if one refused.

  Olsen returned down the steep slope of the soon to be complete canal, sliding on its damp dark sides. Sticking his shovel back into the wet soil, he continued as he’d been doing for the past few weeks. He worked with a team of thirty other men – although how it could be called a team, he didn’t know, as there was little order to the process. Each man dug, hauled, and dumped the soil by himself.

  Next to him, Felix Brandt worked.

  Although, again, he wondered if that were the right word. An older man, whom he’d guessed couldn’t be any younger than 50, worked so slowly that Olsen sometimes wondered whether the man even wanted the project complete.

  Olsen continued this process of filling his bucket, carrying it up the slippery edge of the canal, and then dumping it until he’d lost count of the trips he’d performed that morning. With irritation, he noticed he could easily count two or sometimes even three trips, for every one that Felix achieved.

  He’d never liked the man.

  It didn’t make sense, why someone his age would want to come to such a place for work. Not that he’d ever given much thought about what sort of work an old man like Felix would be well suited to. After his last bucket, Olsen paused his efforts, just long enough to walk down the dike to the edge of the river bank, so that he could fill his cup with the icy cold water.

  When the main river thawed, the attacks would begin again.

  That’s what this was all about. Hastily building, preparing, and guarding the trading post so that it could beat their attackers again, as it had done last summer, and the summer before that. The wall had been strengthened earlier in the winter, and the canals now lengthened to protect the boats. And the settlement would continue to beat them, until they lost, or someone finally discovered what he’d learned the first day he came to the island – that it’s a muddy swamp, in the middle of nowhere, of little value.

  The naiveté made him want to laugh. Not that it was his problem. He would be leaving soon enough. He took another drink of the water. It was so cold it stung
at his throat while he drank, making him cough.

  “You’re slowing down, Albert.” Felix dropped his bucket and climbed down to meet him at the river’s edge. “Are you wearying in your old age?”

  “No, just waiting for you to catch up,” he replied.

  “You may have to wait all day and tomorrow most likely. I’m more than twice your age, you know.”

  And Albert did know, too.

  Felix slowly filled his leather bota bag. Even that, Olsen noticed, seemed to take an unusually long time. The man was slow in every task he performed. Not because he was stupid, or incompetent, but as though he simply couldn’t see the point of any urgency in what he was doing.

  The man seemed to be biding his time and merely waiting.

  But for what?

  Albert wondered why Brandt, for a man who was still laboring at his age, hadn’t felt more urgency to achieve something, anything, before he was incapable of sustaining himself.

  “They tell me you’re leaving soon,” Felix said as he sat down by the river’s edge to drink his water.

  “Yes, when the river thaws, I will look for the next passage home.”

  “It will be difficult with our current arrangement to obtain passage on a ship. After all, no one seems to be playing very well with others currently.”

  Albert smiled, unsure if he was being reprimanded for the way he’d avoided the man. “I’m patient. I’ll find my way home.”

  “Why do you want to return so soon?”

  “Soon? I’ve been here five winters already. Why wouldn’t I want to leave it?”

  “It seems like a nice enough island as any. Is there something waiting for you back home, though?”

  Albert found himself answering before he even considered why the strange old man was interested. “There’s a girl. Frajia Clausen, more perfect than anyone or anything I’ve ever seen. And she promised to wait for me.”

  “That’s very nice. That’s a worthy reason to leave this place.” Felix smiled, a nearly condescending one, and then said, “But have you seen all that this world has to offer? There are some things, I dare say, far more beautiful than that girl of yours…”

  Albert picked up his bucket, ready to return to the canal before he lost his ability to refrain from striking Felix. “If you’d ever met a girl like this, you too, would be quite certain there was no need to see every precious thing this land has to offer before determining that she was the most precious.”

  Felix smiled. There was something unctuous and slimy about it. “Of course, of course… I’m an old man, and foolish at such matters as love. I’ll tell you what I will do for you…”

  Albert paused at the top of the dike. “What you will do for me?”

  “I own a ship, and I have to return to Amsterdam next year. She’s in the north canal. In the summer I too have to return home. You may come with me.”

  Albert stared at the old, worthless man, suddenly realizing his mistake. Brandt wasn’t a slow working laborer. Instead, he was a wealthy landowner, who had paid for the building of the canals. He was too stunned to speak.

  “Would you like that?” Felix asked.

  “Yes sir, thank you very much sir. That’s very kind.”

  “Good. Now, shall we finish this canal?”

  Albert nodded and returned to the canal, ready to continue. Despite commencing work several weeks ago, today it would finally be flooded. At its bottom, a small trickle of water, no more than a few inches high could be seen, having seeped into the otherwise dry canal.

  Albert continued digging with his new-found friend, Felix Brandt. Ensuring the boats that would soon call the canal home had enough water below their keels, an engineer carefully measured the depth.

  The master engineer, Hank Worthington, then inspected the depth of the canal and informed them the canal would have to be dug a further foot deeper, before it could be successfully flooded.

  With slow, purposeful movement of his shovel, Albert deepened the center of the canal. Water filled the spot where he dug as fast as he removed the wet soil. He continued, working harder now he knew who his slow and unwanted companion really was.

  It was there that he found it.

  A strange sound, like metal striking metal. It could have been another hard rock, but the sound didn’t quite match up. Albert kept digging, more out of curiosity than out of any desire to get somewhere.

  His shovel struck it again.

  That was when he first spotted its sparkle. Below the water, half a foot under the soil, Albert saw what had made the sound. It appeared like a strange mixture of red and orange metal, but brighter, almost like gold. He worked the small device with the tip of his shovel until it came free from the earth’s clasp. Pulling it out, he quickly washed it in the muddy water. It glowed red like a strange type of gold. He quickly examined his finding.

  Built like a solid rod, it was nearly half a foot in length and no more than three inches thick. At the head of the device appeared something that resembled a telescope. Only there were no pieces of glass to be seen. Instead, its sharp rectangular angles rotated so that light reflected for no apparent purpose. Strange markings, completely foreign to him, covered the sides, making it appear old. At the base, he noticed something rotate. It had twelve different positions, and each one slightly changed the angle of the reflective metal at its head.

  Olsen grinned as he shuffled the artifact in his hands.

  It felt heavy. More like the weight of a large axe than an ornate looking glass. It was the first time he realized it was a strange red color, ruining his hope that it was gold.

  All the same, it begged the question…

  Where did it come from?

  Albert bent down to wash it again. Over the hill, Felix approached, slow as ever. Terrified that someone might take it from him, Albert slid his finding inside his large jacket pocket, and continued to dig, if only a little hopeful of another such discovery. But he was not so rewarded. In the high tide of that afternoon the canal was opened to the ocean. Water flooded in, and with it, all hopes he held of finding more unique riches.

  That night he visited his master, who was aboard Felix Brandt’s ship, preparing to return to Amsterdam in the spring.

  The Delfland’s rigging had been stripped for winter. Even without it, Albert could see it was a grand sailing ship, befitting a very rich landowner. Hank met him on the upper deck.

  “Hello Olsen. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir.” He looked sheepish as he asked, “Can I come inside and talk privately?”

  “Of course, young man. Come downstairs and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Olsen followed his master deep into the ship. Locked away since it had been stowed for the winter, the Defland still appeared fit for the King of Holland. Inside, the cold interior was expansive, more like a palace than a boat, which often required the use of every inch of her room. He was taken aft, where the master’s cabin rested.

  Reassured that his master was the only person aboard the ship, Albert quickly told his master of the discovery and his worry that someone might steal it from him. When he was done, Hank lit a large candle. Then he smiled and said, “May I examine it?”

  “Of course.” Albert took it out of his pocket and handed it to him.

  Bringing the light of the candle over the metal device, Hank took a cloth covered in strong liquor and began cleaning the orange metal. It reflected the light as powerfully as any gold that either of them had ever seen. Hank polished the device until it became reflective like a mirror. On the side of the rod a strange marking could be seen.

  Albert had never seen the shapes written anywhere. Hank looked at it, mesmerized, and gasped as he saw the writings.

  “Have you seen it before?”

  “No, never,” Hank answered, still polishing it reverently.

  “Then what made you gasp when you saw the markings at its center?”

  “It just looks very similar to something an o
ld friend of mine once showed me from Africa. They were sketches of course, and clearly can have nothing to do with this… even so, the markings bear frightful similarities.”

  “What was so interesting about your friend’s sketches?”

  Hank looked torn. As though he were deciding how much to tell. Then replied, “My friend returned for a second expedition to Africa, but neither he nor any other member of his 22-man team returned.”

  “Do you think the two places could be connected?”

  “What, an old city in Africa and here?” Hank shook his head. “I doubt that very much.”

  “So, can you deliver it to my fiancée? I have another 6 months of service, but I know that you are returning next month for a short while. I trust you. Can you take it for me?”

  “Of course. If you trust me with something so valuable?” Hank replied, his voice reassuringly kind, like a father to a son.

  “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t.”

  “Then of course I’ll do it.”

  *

  Felix Brandt couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw it as he came over the hill. Albert Olsen had found the Arcane Stone!

  The child had no idea of its purpose, but even a fool must have recognized its immediate value. And that would lead him to show it to someone, and before long, someone who knew about it, who had waited many generations to find it, would get access to its secrets.

  No, Olsen was a good boy, with a bright future, but something had to be done.

  Felix left his house after dark. He should have waited later, but he couldn’t afford the possibility that Olsen would be innocent to such an extent that he would show someone tonight. After debating the problem over and over, he walked out into the street.

  Along the rocky edge of Pearl Street, his footsteps echoed quietly into the night until he reached its end. There he turned right and walked along the Heere Gracht, where the moon shined sympathetically on the first high tide, which flooded the newly deepened canal. Soon, he thought, ships would line it as they had in Amsterdam.

  At the end of the canal he reached the wall, where many of the laborers took shelter. It was unusual for a man of his background to be seen at such a place in the early evening, but as the richest man in the new settlement, he had little to fear for his actions.

  He knocked on the door. Albert Olsen answered immediately. His shoes were still on and it looked as though he’d only just arrived home from somewhere.