The Tudor Plot: A Cotton Malone Novella by Steve Berry

into the lock.
    He led Goulding over and did the introductions, learning that the store was hers.
    “I heard the helicopter a few minutes ago,” the woman said in clear English, brushing brown, gray-streaked hair away from her eyes. She was middle-aged with a face round and red as a beet.
    “This is going to sound a little strange,” he said, “but in the mountains, are there any peaks nearby shaped like a pyramid?”
    “Many.”
    “Here’s another stupid question. How about brown-and-red-striped gorges?”
    She smiled. “Too many to even count.”
    He told her about the legend of the haunted cave.
    “Are you treasure hunters?” the woman asked.
    “Not at all,” Malone said.
    “The others said the same thing, and I thought they were lying, too.” Her declaration carried contempt.
    He wanted to know, “What others?”
    “The men up in the mountains.” She pointed to the west toward snowcapped peaks. “They said they were rock hounds. Looking for jasper and obsidian.”
    “How long have they been there?” he asked.
    “About a month. They come down every few days for supplies.”
    He was now interested. “What made you think they were lying?”
    “Too anxious. The hikers and scholars take their time. These men were in a hurry.” She paused. “They stay in a hurry.”
    He was beginning to appreciate the woman’s perception. “You know where they are up there?”
    “One of the herders told me they were beyond the midge lake, above the Álar basin. The hills there are hollow. Lots of caves and tunnels. But there’s nothing there. People have roamed them for centuries.”
    “Did you tell them that?” Malone asked.
    She studied him with a rapt expression. “As I’m telling you.” She hesitated a moment. “Another reason they’re treasure hunters.”
    “Why’s that?” he asked.
    “They didn’t believe me, either.”
    Half an hour of discussion was needed before she warmed to them. It helped that Goulding seemed familiar with the region and understood some of the local peculiarities. A hundred dollars U.S. secured the rental of her Range Rover for the day.
    They headed off on the only highway from town.
    The roadway cleaved a canyon through red rock walls that displayed a geological layer cake of history. The peaks and hills beyond were molded in rust and yellow hues, dusted with snow. Steep remnants of ancient volcanoes drew their attention.
    The absence of ice caught Malone’s interest. “For somewhere so cold, there’s little moisture.”
    “I’ve always thought the name strange, too,” Goulding said. “Iceland. Yet there’s almost none here. The air’s too dry.”
    The shopkeeper from the village told them about abandoned sulfur mines, formed when steam bubbles lifted lava through rock and hardened before shattering, resulting in a maze of passages and chambers. And though all of the mines were now gone, their remnants remained.
    They followed the directions she provided, the road progressively worsening until it was more gravel path than highway. He estimated they were a good thirty miles from the village, isolated, no sign of anyone or anything.
    “According to what she told us,” Goulding said, “it’s a hike up through those hills just ahead.”
    Malone stopped the vehicle, and they climbed out onto a lava flow colonized by lichens. Dwarf willows hugged the black earth in scattered patches. Tundra spread off toward the north, a snowfield to the west.
    He led the way up a slope.
    Hiking this ground was like walking on ball bearings and he was grateful for the boots the military had recommended earlier. They were looking for a
nemeton
, the Celtic word for a sacred place in a remote locale. The ancient manuscripts referred to
door mountain
, noting its location in reference to a pyramid-shaped peak. Mountain ranges pierced the sky in a variety of shapes, basalt, tuff, and rhyolite clearly mangled over time. He realized that what was pyramid-shaped in the 6th century might no