Hunter: Warrior of Doridia (The Saga of Jon Hunter Book 1) Read online

  HUNTER, WARRIOR OF DORIDIA

  The Chronicle of Jon Hunter

  by

  Ronald J. Watkins

  © Ronald J. Watkins 2014

  www.RonaldJWatkins.com

  WatkinsLiterary.com

  Cover by David E. Payne

  Other books by the author

  Fiction

  Cimmerian

  Alter Ego

  A Suspicion of Guilt

  Shadows and Lies

  A Deadly Glitter

  The Dutchman

  True Crime

  Evil Intentions

  Against Her Will

  The Naked Streets

  Non-Fiction

  Unknown Seas

  Birthright

  High Crimes and Misdemeanors

  Audio Books

  Against Her Will

  Unknown Seas

  The Summit Murder Series with Charles G. Irion

  Murder on Everest

  Murder on Elbrus

  Murder on Mt. McKinley

  Murder on Puncak Jaya

  Murder on Aconcagua

  Murder on Vinson Masiff

  Murder on Kilimanjaro

  Abandoned on Everest [prequel]

  ~

  HUNTER, WARRIOR OF DORIDIA

  STATEMENT CONCERNING THE MANUSCRIPT

  My story is unimportant as you will soon learn. I have been but the means by which the manuscript of the remarkable Jon Hunter came to be published. I had no part in the acts that comprise his story, but I believe that some explanation concerning this manuscript’s origin is required.

  Who I am and how I came to be at precisely the right place at the right moment is of little consequence. Suffice it to say that upon completing a graduate degree at a mediocre state college, I found a teaching position impossible to attain. With some displeasure, but desperately in need of employment, I accepted a position as an assistant mining engineer with a major international mining consortium.

  The consortium had secretly obtained mining rights from a particularly corrupt South American country which allowed the consortium access to its site in Antarctica, a station ostensibly occupied for scientific research only. International agreements forbade just such mining on the Antarctic continent, but with its true intent carefully concealed, the consortium proceeded to explore for precious metals. Our technique was of recent discovery and still of an experimental nature. My part in this operation was minor, but placed me at the mining site. To ensure security, all personnel were maintained in Antarctica on a permanent basis during the initial stages of the operation.

  The technique allowed potentially resource rich environments to be identified from above the ice. I arrived after just such a site had been located. We successfully bored through several hundred feet of snow and ice, and within a few weeks reached the top of the continent itself. Special equipment was then lowered to the soil below and an eerie domed shaped subterranean cavern was created. Eventually the company intended to place a team in this football field sized cavern to work at leisure below prying eyes.

  On the day of my discovery we had moved most of the equipment to ground level. I was assigned first watch during the sleeping period and spent the time monitoring the equipment, bored and alone. Unable to remain immobile the entire shift, I decided to hike around the perimeter where the ice touched the land. Any opportunity to stretch my legs in private was not to be ignored.

  I found this icy enclosure disturbing. The walls dripped water which collected near the sides in steel colored pools. Bright lights lit the interior in patches while the sapphire blue walls drew the heat and light to itself leaving the air frigid and dark.

  Unlike the Arctic, which is simply a giant slab of ice floating on the ocean, Antarctica is actually an ice-covered continent, slightly larger than Australia. Core samples taken from the soil by legitimate researchers revealed the continent had not always been snow covered. Signs that an almost tropical climate had once been the norm were abundant. Many of these signs were in fossil form, but others were, relatively speaking, of more recent origin.

  I knew that experts disagreed how Antarctica came to be located at the South Pole and as to how long the continent had been ice bound. Most adhered to the conventional continental drift theory, which insisted that all the modern continents of Earth had once broken free from a mother land mass named Pangaea, and that Antarctica had crept to the South Pole over hundreds of thousands of years.

  A minority of scientists claimed, however, that at one time, probably within the last two hundred thousand years, Antarctica had been located much nearer the equator in a temperate zone. This theory is supported by the fact that the Earth is not a perfect globe and, as a consequence, has an unstable spin. It appears constant to us during our short lives, but over the existence of earth the fatal defect reveals itself. The Earth, they postulate, once spun on an ancient axis, the pole located elsewhere. It began to wobble much as a top slowing down. The Earth recovered though not without massive world-wide havoc but the axis and the poles abruptly shifted. A frozen part of the world become tropical almost overnight, while Antarctica became a frozen wasteland just as quickly.

  I thought about this as I paced the cavern, kicking at the ground, unconsciously searching for clues. Recent East African discoveries have established that Homo Sapiens had existed on Earth for at least two hundred thousand years, and has looked as we do now as long ago as one hundred thousand years. Yet his recorded climb to modern civilization occupied the brief span of five thousand years, with little evidence of even basic structures beyond 10,000 years go. The reality is that man as we know him has lived on Earth long enough to have attained and lost many civilizations. The ever changing face of our planet serves to conceal them from us. We know far less about our past than we pretend.

  As I walked about the ice dome I attempted to imagine how it would have been had some such civilization occupied Antarctica, to live in a warm land, to witness the coming and going of the seasons for a lifetime and overnight be plunged into an Antarctic freezer. All life, even in an advanced technological society, would have perished in days, if not hours. All traces would be destroyed, buried beneath ice over tens of thousands of years. Mankind would return to barbarism in those outposts of the world where he survived only to begin the long ascent to civilization still again. How many times had this pattern repeated itself, I pondered.

  I had nearly completed my first circle when I spotted a broad, very flat rock just clear of the surrounding ice wall. Thinking it might be moveable, and wishing to collect it for analysis, I went for a lever. With some effort, I managed to free the stone from the ground. As it moved, uncovered was an opening in the ground. I was momentarily startled, but then quickly directed my flashlight into the unexpected discovery. I do not know how long I froze there. My mind stopped, as did time itself seem to. I wasn’t looking into a ditch or natural cave. I was peering into a man-made passageway.

  With some trepidation I entered, feeling, I imagine, much as an archeologist uncovering the tomb of some ancient Pharaoh. I lowered myself into the smallish room, no larger than a studio apartment I had once rented. Around me were ruins. I saw what appeared to be remnants of edged weapons, clothing, armor and statuary. This place had been constructed long before the ice and the ice had come tens of thousands of years ago.

  Light from the opening above shown down the passageway and landed as intended, I later supposed, on what initially appeared to be a rectangular stone altar. Upon it lay an enormous block of glittering gold which drew me at once. As I approached I realized it was not a block. Rather it was
a book! Each page of paper- thin gold compressed to the others, forming one massive tablet. Across the pages, I observed, was an alien language.

  I was astounded. Of all the items in the chamber, this alone had withstood the ravages of time unchanged. Anything else capable of preserving writing would have perished. Gold alone had survived.

  I left intending to call for help but as I reached my communicator, I stopped. The moment I called for assistance my role was at an end. Others would claim the credit, take the glory and the wealth this discovery promised.

  What did I owe this consortium? It was here, mining against international law; perhaps, I thought, it might even seek to suppress my find.

  My find! Not theirs.

  So instead I went to my belongings and removed my camera. Returning to the room I had uncovered, I systematically photographed the entire book, page by immense page.

  I don’t really know what I intended. I believe I hoped that in the event the consortium tried to shut me out, I would use the pictures to prove later that I alone had discovered the book. I’m not certain. Sometime after I began, I placed the camera away and entered the passage tube to go to the surface. My replacement wasn’t expected for one hour, but my work completed I wanted to break the news at once.

  I have often wondered how things would have been had I done what my first impulse had dictated. With other witnesses the ending might have been different. I will never know.

  As I reached the surface, a rumbling deep in the ice began. As I emerged from the tube, agitated technicians swore and cursed the readings of their equipment. The cavern had collapsed below us and all our efforts had failed.

  I started to tell them my story, but quickly realized how preposterous it sounded. I decided to wait until I could produce physical copies of the pictures. A few weeks later I had been returned to the United States. There I made the decision not to rejoin the consortium when it returned and resumed mining operations. I decided instead to prepare my story, make my contacts and assure my fortune. After the cavern was reopened, I would advise my former superiors of my find and insure the rediscovery of the ancient room and book. Simultaneously I would go public with what I had.

  The months dragged on. I could trust no one and kept my secret. Finally, impatient with delay, I reached a contact at the consortium and learned that their Antarctic mining efforts had been abandoned as too costly. They would not reopen the cavern.

  I was shocked beyond words. I became depressed, then hysterical. In desperation, I printed in large form a sample of the book and with prints in hand went to the company. Utilizing all of the guile and threats I could command, I worked my way up as far in the chain of authority as possible.

  One bleak Thursday I met with the head of mining operations who greeted my story with total disbelief. If what I said was true, why hadn’t I said so at the beginning? Why wait until now?

  I became angry, haughty and, with a flourish, played my trump card. I threw an enlargement of the first page of the book onto his desk. He examined it for a few minutes and then began to laugh. The laughter grew as it continued. I demanded to know what he found so amusing.

  “Amusing?” he said, “You’ve wasted enough of my time. What did you call this? The greatest find since the Bible? You expect me to believe that this is a photograph of a golden book, tens of thousands of years old. Look at it, you idiot. It’s English!”

  I couldn’t believe him. True, I had never studied the images carefully. Why should I? In the ancient room I had seen that the writing was alien. A foreign, and very old, language. There had been no point in trying to read it. “That’s impossible,” I stammered.

  “Look, go ahead, look,” he said, “There are no margins, no paragraphs, few articles and most of the vowels are missing and the letters are formed in straight lines, but it will take more than that to create a foreign language. Hebrew is written without vowels and is perfectly readable. Now get out and go waste someone else’s time. I’ve got work to do.”

  I returned home with my prints and took my first real look at them. He was right; it was English. But, I alone, knew I had discovered a book, in modern English, written on gold, buried beneath the ground, under the ice pack of Antarctica, many thousands of years old. It made no sense at all.

  At first.

  I began to read the book. It became clear almost at once that space had been at a premium for the author. He had sought to waste not an inch, and so abandoned the spacing of words, margins, articles, paragraphs. He also wrote almost completely without vowels.

  Once accustomed to the changes it took little effort to transcribe the manuscript. The book was immense; each massive page having been crammed with writing. It took me three months to read the book in its entirety. The first small portion is here. I have stopped the story at the first logical place. The paragraphs are mine as is the division into chapters.

  The story is the author’s.

  I soon gave up all efforts of having this book published as the historical fact I know it to be; rather it is presented as a work of fiction. I leave it for you to judge.

  R.J.W.

  Puerto Penasco

  Sonora, Mexico

  INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

  I have been known by many names. Among the caravans of the Golden Triangle I have been called Ramor, to others I was Tabux. In the Khashan Mountains they called me Kaldak and to the tribesmen of Daron and the lost city of Aha Men, I was Volscian.

  But I was born Jon Hunter and in telling my story it is only fitting that I be known by my true name. I am of modern Earth, yet I have become of Doridia, a land with a remarkable ancient civilization that survives only in my words upon these pages of gold. If it is true that a man becomes the sum total of his life experiences, then I ceased to be of modern Earth while in my twenties.

  I know it is vain of me to believe that anyone will ever read these words. At the beginning I understood very little concerning what had happened to me. In time I pieced together what I am convinced is the truth. If I am correct, then there is little reason to anticipate that this book will ever be found, but in my vanity, I hope for more.

  I reach across the years to you. Read and believe my words. Know that I have lived and fought and loved. Know that I did exist, for I must believe my book will be discovered and that you will learn what became of Jon Hunter.

  I have selected gold as my writing material because it alone can survive the onslaught of the coming ages. I have left other items but I suspect they will perish. I have elected to write in a form of my native language that allows me maximum use of these precious pages.

  Concerning my life before Doridia there is little to say. I grew up on a farm and following college entered the Navy. I was assigned sea duty aboard a ship rigged with the latest electronic surveillance equipment. We patrolled calmly off the legal limit of hostile nations acting as sea going spies. My duties were minimal as a new Ensign, but following a particularly violent storm I was sent aloft to sort the tangled antennae so essential for our sophisticated operation.

  Perhaps lightning struck or maybe the ship’s power was turned on inadvertently. I never knew. I suppose I should have died and to those below, I did. They never found my body, of course, but I would not have been the first sailor ever lost at sea, nor the last.

  As it was, I did not die. Some combination of rigging or antennae was set precisely right. The power surge from whatever source was exact and as I touched a bit of twisted metal, my eyes flashed white. I fell and kept falling for what seemed an eternity but may have been no more than a heartbeat.

  I awoke – somewhere else.

  1. I COME TO DORIDIA

  I came to consciousness no longer aboard ship or at sea, my head consumed with pain, lying motionless upon my back, unable to cry out. I opened my eyes but could see nothing and feared blindness. Sudden nausea overcame me and I heaved across my chest unable to so much as turn my head, such was my misery. Merciful blackness followed.

  I stirred
again to awareness still blind or seemingly so. The pain was now more bearable. I cried out in despair. The moon broke through the heavily overcast sky, peeking momentarily down upon me as I lay shivering, lingering just long enough to demonstrate that my vision had not been lost after all. I attempted to sit up only to suffer bright streaks of blinding pain followed again by blackness.

  I awoke the third and final time in daylight, the pain subsided. Able to turn my head, I found myself in a small clearing surrounded by majestic pines, swaying gently in the soft breeze. Tall, lush, green grass bent to the soil covering the clearing except for a meandering crevice almost concealing a rushing stream.

  I painstakingly sat up, remaining in this position as I searched my naked body in vain for injury. My condition improved with each passing moment. Any concern for my vision was now dispelled completely. I crawled at first, then walked or rather stumbled to the gurgling stream where I drank deeply before washing in the frigid, sparkling mountain water.

  I could discern a bird calling out, another answering, and in the distance, children laughing. Peaceful. Serene. A merry sound. Towards the laughter I detected a whiff of pale smoke, the only sign of man I could observe. I was disoriented, unable to clear my thoughts or think clearly. I staggered from the clearing, unsteady on my feet, cutting through thin forest in places, following the sounds of the children. As I stepped out of the trees, I spotted them playing not far from me before a caravan, comprised of about thirty oxen-pulled wagons, brightly painted an assortment of gaudy colors. The immense wagons reminded me of the Conestoga wagons of the American West except that these were much wider in proportion to length and of a generally larger size. I was reminded of Gypsies. Small fires and the gathering about them suggested that the travelers were stopped for a midday meal.