The Atlantis Keystone

The Atlantis Keystone
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2014 by Caroline Väljemark

Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Cover design by Thomas von der Luft

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First Edition: June 2014
Wings Förlag

ISBN: 978-91-637-5179-0

From Timaeus by Plato, written 360 BC:

“Tell us, said the other, the whole story [of Atlantis], and how and from whom Solon heard this veritable tradition.

He replied: In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them.”

T
he lukewarm breeze from the Indian Ocean was pleasant, like a gentle feather sweeping over her skin. Anna Stenbock sat in a sun lounger on the patio of a stilted hotel bungalow with her husband of eight days, Erik Stenbock, asleep in the chair next to her. The Swedish medieval castle of Torpa, to which Erik was the sole heir, was thousands of miles away. Nevertheless, like so many times before in the last couple of weeks, Anna’s mind wandered to its snow-covered roof and dark irregularly-sized windows. She shivered when she visualised the castle tower. In her mind she climbed the stairs and stopped when she reached the second floor landing. She faced the wall on the opposite side and imagined stroking it with her hand, assessing the material and the thickness of it. She knew that behind the plastered surface was a gap between the inner and outer wall; an unexplained vacuum which according to tradition no one had dared to enter for hundreds of years. A medieval legend told the tale of a girl, the daughter of a knight, who was suspected of having caught the plague on a trip to visit relatives in Denmark six hundred years ago. To prevent an outbreak of the disease, the girl’s father buried her alive inside the wall by blocking up the space where there had been a door. Her screams could be heard for three days and three nights. Local folklore proclaimed that any attempt to open her resting place had been followed by someone’s death, resulting in a lack of enthusiasm for further discovery.

Until recently Anna had believed in the legend and had imagined, like most people who had taken the guided tour of the castle, that if the wall was ever opened they would find a dusty medieval skeleton with a mummy-like expression of fear forever etched on its skull. Although that was a disturbing notion, it was nothing to what she now knew or rather suspected was actually hidden in there. A few days before the wedding she had made a discovery which revealed a shocking truth about the contents of the void. Although the white-rendered stone building was no longer fit for modern habitation, Anna had spent a lot of time in it since she met Erik five years earlier. She found the place intriguing and irresistible, allowing her to make good use of her history degree, researching rare journals left by generations of Torpa occupants. She now wished she hadn’t; desperately wanting to return to her previous ignorant existence.

She took a sip of her coffee and put down the cup before she glanced over at Erik. It was shortly after breakfast but she wasn’t surprised that he had allowed himself to get lulled into a happy trance-like state. Apart from being lazy, he was perfect in every way. Appearance wise he was as one would imagine a skilled Renaissance artist capturing a Greek warrior god; his blonde hair flawlessly arranged despite having done nothing to it apart from bathing in salty water and leaving it to dry in the wind; his tanned upper body muscular in an almost pedantic way even though he never went to the gym. At present his face was relaxed and partly concealed by sunglasses but she knew that as soon as he smiled, straight teeth and dimples in both cheeks would appear. She found it funny that he remained completely oblivious to his own good looks and as far as she knew he didn’t notice the constant glances and attention he was getting from members of the opposite sex. She loved that about him. In fact she loved everything about him, perhaps apart from his stubbornness… and his dangerous habit of sleepwalking.

She wanted to tell him what she had found out about Torpa, craved to… but she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t tell anyone… She moved up and down in the sun lounger, as if she kept adjusting a driving seat in a car. She knew Erik wouldn’t appreciate a reminder of the contentious issues of the old place anyway. It would trigger associations with his unhappy childhood. If only the wall could be opened so that she could have it confirmed. In the end she decided she had to at least ask him. She poked his arm, leaned over him and took his sunglasses off.

“Erik, there’s something I have to ask you,” she said in a loud voice to wake him up. “It’s very important so you’ll have to listen to me.” He appeared startled, held his breath and looked as if he thought she was about to ask for an annulment of their marriage. She moved his feet and sat down at the end of his chair, taking one of his hands and playing with his fingers as she spoke: “You know the legend about the medieval girl buried alive inside a wall at Torpa…”

“Yes…” he said with a mixture of relief and confusion, starting to breathe again. “We need to open the castle wall where the girl may have been buried. The reason why I ask this is because I believe the wall is hiding something of importance.”

A familiar wrinkle of irritation appeared between his eyebrows: “How important could a skeleton of a girl buried hundreds of years ago be?” he asked rhetorically.

“I’m telling you; I have reason to believe that the space between the inner and outer wall where she supposedly died is hiding something else. I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than that but please believe me when I say that the only way to find out for sure is to
open that wall.
” She stood up in an attempt to emphasise her words.

Erik was unmoved. “I thought you knew my stance on this. The poor girl’s resting place should not be disturbed. Grave robbery is not my business, that’s for sure. And the legend about the girl buried alive in the wall is a major tourist attraction for the castle,” he added. “To open the wall would ruin this. My mother would simply never allow it.” She could see from his momentarily widened eyes that his own reference to his mother had surprised him. That Erik agreed with his mother was very unusual.

“Can you please at least ask her?” she begged.

“No, I know what she’ll say. There’s no point in having this discussion. Can you please drop it and enjoy our honeymoon.” He leaned back in his chair and put his sunglasses back on, pretending that the conversation had never happened.

Anna sat back down in her chair. She regretted bringing it up. She didn’t want to ruin what had so far been a wonderful holiday. To lighten up the atmosphere she added with a smirk: “Well I suppose so. We all know what’s happened to everyone who has tried to break open the wall.” She paused for effect, waived her hands to simulate ghosts and waited for his reaction. He managed a smile but didn’t say anything until he suddenly got up.

“I fancy a jog. I’ll be back shortly”, he said before he went into the bungalow. She silently watched him through the window; put on shorts and T-shirt, come out, kiss her quickly on the mouth, say ‘love you’ and disappear down the steps leading to the beach. Anna remained seated, considering what line of attack she would use to convince her mother in law when they got back to Sweden.

She had not particularly studied the other hotel guests on the beach; not until they all stood up at the same time as if they had collectively agreed to do so. The distant roaring of the sea changed nature. She glanced down and saw something odd. The water appeared to pull back, leaving several metres of sand, stones and shells exposed, as if Moses had been there with his stick. It was strange. Anna had never seen anything like it and wondered why the tide would suddenly be so low. The water continued to draw back. People were pointing, laughing and some walked down to the exposed ocean floor, testing out the wet sand with naked feet. Apart from the excited voices of the people on the beach everything was peaceful, but this was definitely not right. This was not normal. Somewhere at the back of her mind she remembered something about the effects of earthquakes. There had been an almost imperceptible vibration two hours ago but she was sure it could not have caused the strange behaviour of the ocean now. Anna went down the stairs to the beach to ask what was going on; to see if they knew whether some strange tide phenomenon normally occurred at this time of year. She saw that a middle aged corpulent man boasting a white beer belly and a receding hairline in the neighbouring bungalow was doing the same. She had not spoken to him before but decided to do so now. She was fairly certain he and his wife were Swedish as well.

The man spoke first: “Look at that! Amazing! I saw something similar on holiday in America once. The surfers went mad.” At that moment someone screamed and pointed further out the sea. Many stayed put but a few started to run inland towards the reception building which was located on higher ground. A couple of young boys with surfboards happily ran out in the water. Anna had assumed everyone was excited about the tide but she soon became aware that an enormous wave, larger than she had ever seen, approached. From where she was it looked like a line in the water; a wall moving at high speed. She got cold from fear at the realization of the possible effects of such a wave. Her first instinct was to run for her life as fast as she could but the man next to her laughed and said to her mockingly: “Ha! Look at those people running.” The man waived to his wife in the hut and slowly walked down to the water’s edge. Perhaps he knew something she didn’t.

Anna reassessed the situation and decided that she may be overreacting. She went back up the stairs to her bungalow. Perhaps she was safer up there anyway. She was sure the build quality was good. The hotel was expensive enough… On her way up she noted that several birds deserted the beach area and the nearby trees. She then realised that the wave was enormous, gigantic and even taller than she had first thought. She heard terrified high pitched screams in the distance. Panic stricken she had only just reached the top of the stairs when the wave struck the bungalow, showering her with great force. She managed to grab hold of the fence. She had not predicted the power with which the water quickly filled the shoreline. There was water everywhere. A strong smell of fish or seaweed filled her nostrils. She struggled on in what felt like heavy rain over the patio to the door to the bungalow. With a loud cracking noise the bungalow suddenly started to lean violently. The stilts on which it stood begun to break. Clinging on like a leech she screamed for help but the people on the beach had disappeared, been submerged or carried away by the strong current. With horror she saw that the bungalow next door had already collapsed. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion even though it was a matter of seconds. She didn’t even have time to reflect properly on her situation before something hit her hard over the head. It felt as if her head split open. She was barely conscious but understood that the bungalow had crumbled on top of her. It pulled her down under water. She closed her eyes and waved her arms in an attempt to get to the surface.