Olaf's hands touched the object and he found the surface cold and

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SACRED STONE 9

smooth. For the briefest of instants he felt his heart miss a beat-but he

continued on. He attempted to lift the orb but found it too heavy for his

expedition-weary arms.

"I'll need help," Olaf said.

"You," Eric said, motioning to another man with his staff.

Gro the Slayer, a taller man with light yellow hair and pale blue eyes,

took three steps forward and grabbed one side of the orb. Both men

used their back muscles and lifted the orb to hip level, then stared at

Eric.

"Make a sling from the tusked one's skin," Eric pronounced. "We

will take it back to the cave and build a shrine."

Without another word, Eric set off across the snow, leaving the others

to tend to the discovery. Two hours later the orb was safely inside the

cave. Eric immediately began planning an elaborate enclosure for the

object he now believed had come directly from the gods in the heavens

above.

ERIC LEFT OLAF and Gro to guard the heavenly body while he returned

to the settlement on the coast for more men and material. Once

there, he learned that a son had been born to his wife in his absence. He

named him Leif in honor of the spring season, then left him with his

mother to raise. With eighty more men and tools to excavate the cavern

where the orb was hidden, he set off north toward the distant mountain.

Summer was near and the sun was visible around the clock.

GRO THE SLAYER turned on his pelt bed then spat some loose fur from

his mouth.

Rubbing his hand across the bearskin, he watched in surprise as the

fur balled up in his palm. Then he stared at the orb in the dancing light

of a torch placed in the wall.

"Olaf," he said to the teenager sleeping a short distance away, "it is

time to rise and face the day."

Olaf rolled over and stared toward Gro. His eyes were red and

10 CLIVE CUSSLER

bloodshot and his skin blotchy and flaking. He coughed lightly, sat upright

and stared at Gro through the dim light. Gro's hair had been shedding

and his color was all wrong.

"Gro," Olaf said, "your nose."

Gro raised the back of his hand to his nose and saw the red of blood.

More and more often he had found himself with a bloody nose. He

reached down and tugged on a painful tooth. It came out in his fingers.

He tossed it aside and rose to his feet.

"I'll cook the berries," he said.

Stirring the fire, he added a few sticks from their dwindling supply

then retrieved a sealskin bag containing the red berries they boiled to

make a bitter morning drink. Walking outside the cave, he filled a dented

iron pot with water from the stream of a nearby melting glacier, then