Read Black Onyx Duology for Free Online Page A

backed up and drove away.

10
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Antarctica. From the deck of the ship, it looked like a translucent hallucination. The ice was mostly blue, not transparent. The weather was good right now, about twenty degrees, and it wasn’t snowing.
    After the yacht had docked , a crew of three had begun unloading their equipment. The location they were hiking to was two and a half miles away. Snowmobiles couldn’t help, George had assured them, because it would be uphill and some of the terrain was rocky.
    Everyone checked and rechecked their packs before George put on his beanie and smiled, and turned to begin walking. Dillon looked to James who slapped his shoulder and he began trekking behind George.
    In some spots, the landscape wasn’t all that foreign. An open valley surrounded by small hills of snow and ice. But in others, it appeared like a foreign planet. Huge monoliths of blue ice tor e out of the ground and towered above them, like guardians holding some secret they couldn’t know.
    In other places, you could see actual trees. They were frozen stiff and pure white, but the comfort of something familiar in an alien landscape was inescapable. Dillon could feel it. At one point they had to put on crampon s and get out their ski poles as they were now traversing pure ice directly up a large mountain. George stopped for a moment at the base.
    “It ’s up here,” he said. “Now look, I’m not stupid. You’re here because if there’s any treasure you want a piece. Well that’s fine, but keep in mind this is my find. Anything you guys want to take has to be cleared by me. We’re not here to spend a ton of time. I’m here to document what there is and what there isn’t and I’m coming back with men I trust later in the year. But for now, you can have some trinkets as long as it’s cleared by me. Do we understand each other?”
    “Perfectly,” James said.
    “Good. If I catch you guys stealing anything that wasn’t cleared with me first, I’ll leave you here. I’m not kidding. I have no obligation to take you back on my yacht.”
    “We understand, Mr. Anston,” James said. “We’re not here to step on anybody’s toes. Anything we wish to possess will be cleared by you first.”
    George looked to Dillon. “What about you , hotshot? Do you understand?”
    “ Don’t take anything unless you say so.”
    George nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
    Dillon looked back to James and held up his hand, which had his gloved fingers crossed. James smiled as they continued up the blue mountain.
     
     
    Near the top of the mou ntain they stopped and drank hot tea from canteens. It was snowing now and the weather was gray. They had hiked for nearly three hours, and Dillon couldn’t see anything but ice and snow in every direction. Even the sea was out of view now.
    George pointed out a hole the size of a manhole cover.
    “This is it,” he said.
    “This is what?” Dillon asked, out of breath from the hike and the altitude.
    “This is where we enter.”
    The three crewmen began bolting cables and rope into the ice. They threw the cables down the hole and got out repelling equipment. Dillon strapped in as George and James did the same. Niles and the three crewmen would be staying up here.
    “It’s an easy repel,” George said. “Just take it slow.”
    Dillon waited for George to go down first and then he climbed into the hole feet first. He slid at first and then had to catch himself on the rope. He began to gently push back with his legs and slid down a couple feet at a time.
    They were in a cavern of sapphire ice. The hole opened up and he could see the massive space. On one side was the chaotic aftermath of an avalanche. That must’ve been how George discovered this place. On the other side was what looked like a narrow pathway.
    Down below, maybe fifty feet, George was already unbuckling his harness.
    Dillon reached bottom and unbuckled before helping James down. They looked around. The cavern