Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  Like everyone else, he moved slowly, cautiously, staring at the cats while he kept his finger poised on the trigger of his M-16.

  It was a truly bizarre sensation, a kind of stand-off. Men armed with guns, the cats armed with sheer natural aggression. Despite their rifles and their pistols, Race was certain that the rapas could take them all down easily if they dared to fire a shot.

  But the cats did not attack.

  It was as if the humans were protected from them by some kind of invisible wall—a wall which the rapas simply refused to cross. Rather, they just followed Race and the others at a safe distance, paralleling them as they made their way toward the riverside path.

  Christ, they’re huge! Race thought as he made his way through the ranks of massive black cats.

  The last time he had seen them up close he had been on the other side of the Humvee’s glass windows, but now—now that they were all around him, with no windows or doors separating them from him—they looked twice as big. He could hear their breathing. It was just as Alberto Santiago had described it—a deep-chested braying sound like that of a horse. The sound of a powerful beast.

  “Why don’t we just shoot them?” Copeland whispered. “I wouldn’t go doing that too quickly,” Van Lewen replied. “At the moment I think their dislike of monkey urine overrides their desire to kill us. If we open fire on them, I drink it’s likely that their desire to survive will override their dislike of monkey urine.”

  The eight of them made their way up the riverside path and into the narrow fissure in the plateau, the rapas following them at a distance.

  They emerged from the passageway at the bottom of the crater and saw the shallow lake stretching away from them, with the rock tower soaring into the sky from its center and the thin but incredibly tall waterfall pouring down from the southwest corner of the canyon.

  For once it wasn’t raining, and the full moon shone down on the crater with all its strength, bathing it in a kind of mystical blue light.

  Led by Van Lewen, they climbed the spiraling path, up into the night.

  The rapas slunk their way up the spiraling path behind them. With their dark black heads and high pointed ears, they looked like demons climbing up out of hell itself, ready to yank Race and his companions down into the depths of the earth should any of them make one false step. But ultimately they just kept their distance, put off by the smell of the monkey urine.

  At last the group came to the two buttresses that had once held up the rope bridge.

  The rope bridge itself now lay flat against the wall of the tower on the other side of the ravine, exactly where the Nazis had left it.

  Race looked across at the tower top. There was no sign of Buzz Cochrane anywhere.

  Then, however, instead of crossing over onto the rock tower—which, at present, they couldn’t do anyway—Van Lewen led them further up the spiraling path, toward the rim of the crater.

  The path slid around and behind the thin waterfall at the southwestern corner before it rose dramatically, arriving at the rim of the crater.

  Race stepped up onto the rim and looked westward—and saw the majestic peaks of the Andes towering above him, dark triangular shadows superimposed on the night sky. Off to his left, he saw the small river that fed the thin waterfall and alongside it, a section of dense rainforest.

  A narrow muddy path—created by constant use rather than any deliberate design—ran away from him into the thick green foliage.

  But it was what sat on either side of the slender path that seized his immediate attention—a pair of wooden stakes, driven into the mud.

  Impaled on each stake was a fearsome-looking skull.

  Race felt a chill as he shone his barrel-mounted flashlight onto one of the skulls.

  It looked utterly horrific—an effect magnified by the co-pious amounts of fresh blood and rotting flesh that dangled from its sides. It was oddly shaped too—definitely not human. Rather, both skulls were strangely elongated, with sharp canine teeth, inverted triangular nostrils and wide eye sockets.

  Race swallowed hard.

  They were feline skulls.

  They were rapa skulls.

  “A primitive ‘Keep Out’ sign,” Krauss said, looking at the two filthy skulls impaled on the stakes.

  “I don’t think they’re meant to keep people out,” Gaby Lopez said, sniffing one of the skulls. “They’ve been drenched in monkey urine. They’re designed to keep the cats away.”

  Van Lewen stepped past the skulls and pressed on into the dense foliage. Race and the others followed him, guided by the beams of their flashlights.

  About thirty yards beyond the two skulls, Van Lewen and Race came to a wide moat not unlike the one that surrounded Vilcafor.

  The only differences between the two moats were, firstly, that this moat wasn’t dried up—rather, it was filled with water, the surface of which lay about fifteen feet below the rim of the moat And secondly, it was inhabited, by a family of very large caimans.

  “Great” Race said as he watched the giant crocodilians prowling around the bottom of the moat “Caimans again.”

  “Another defensive mechanism?” Renée asked.

  “Caimans are the only animals in this area with even a remote chance of defeating a rapa in a fight” Krauss said. “Primitive tribes do not have rifles or trip wires, so they look for other methods of keeping their feline enemies at bay.”

  Beyond the moat—completely surrounded by it—Race saw another section of low foliage, beyond which lay a small collection of thatch huts nestled underneath a stand of tall trees.

  It was a village of some sort.

  The short stretch of foliage lay between the village and the moat gave the cluster of primitive huts a quaint almost mystical look. Some torches burned on high sticks, bathing the little town in a haunting orange glow. Apart from the burning torches, however, the village appeared to be completely deserted.

  A twig snapped.

  Race spun, and immediately saw the pack of rapas standing on the muddy pathway about ten yards behind his group. Somehow, they had managed to get past the urine-soaked skulls and now they were standing a short distance behind Race and the others—watching, waiting.

  A narrow log-bridge lay flat on the ground on the village side of the moat. A length of rope was attached to one end of it in a manner not unlike that which had applied to the rope bridge down at the rock tower. It stretched out over the moat to Race’s side, where it was tied to a stake in the ground.

  Van Lewen and Doogie pulled on the rope, maneuverd the log-bridge into position so that it now spanned the moat

  The eight of them then crossed the bridge and entered the section of low foliage surrounding the village.

  Once they were all over the bridge, Van Lewen and Doogie quickly pulled it back onto the village side of the moat, so that the rapas could not follow them over.

  They all came out from the foliage together, emerging onto a wide, town square-like clearing. They cast the beams of their flashlights over the thatch huts and tall trees that surrounded the bare dirt clearing.

  At the northern end of the square stood a bamboo cage, its four corners comprised of four thick tree trunks. Beyond the cage—carved out of the muddy wall of the moat—was a large pit about thirty feet square and fifteen feet deep. A criss-crossing bamboo gate separated the pit from the moat itself.

  In the very center of the town square, however, stood the most arresting sight of all.

  It was a shrine of some sort a large wooden altarlike structure that had been carved out of the trunk of the widest tree in the village.

  It was filled with nooks and small alcoves. Inside the al-coves Race saw a collection of relics that was nothing short of spectacular—a golden crown embedded with sapphires, silver and gold statues of Incan warriors and maidens, various stone idols, and one gigantic ruby that was easily the size of a man’s fist.

  Even in the semi-darkness, the shrine shone, its treasures glistening in the moonlight. D
ense clusters of leaves hung down from the trees around it, framing it on either side like curtains in a theater.

  In the very center of the wooden shrine—right where its heart would have been—sat the most elaborate nook of all. It was covered by a small curtain and was quite obviously the centerpiece of the whole altar. But whatever occupied it lay hidden from view.

  Nash strode directly over to it. Race knew what he was thinking. With a sharp yank, Nash pulled the curtain covering the nook aside.

  And he saw it. Race saw it too, and gasped.

  It was the idol.

  The real idol.

  The Spirit of the People.

  The sight of it took Race’s breath away. Strangely, the first thing that struck him about the idol was what an excel-lent job Bassario had done in replicating it—his fake idol had been a perfect reproduction. But no matter how hard he had tried, Bassario had been unable to reproduce the aura that surrounded the real idol.

  It was majesty personified.

  The ferocity of the rapa’s head inspired terror. The glint of the purple-and-black thyrium stone inspired wonder. The whole shining idol just inspired awe.

  Entranced, Nash reached out to pick it up—at exactly the same moment as a sharpened stone arrowhead appeared next to his head.

  The arrow was held by a very angry-looking native who had stepped out from the curtain-like foliage to the right of the shrine. He held the arrow poised in his longbow, its draw-string stretched taut back to his ear.

  Van Lewen made to raise his G-11, just as the forest all around him came alive and out of it stepped no fewer than fifty natives.

  Nearly all of them brandished bows and arrows, all of them aimed squarely at Race and the others.

  Van Lewen still had his gun up. Doogie didn’t. He just stood rooted to the spot a few yards away, frozen.

  An uneasy stand-off materialized. Van Lewen—armed with a gun that could kill twenty men in an instant—facing off against the fifty-plus natives armed with bows and arrows that were all ready to be fired.

  There are too many of them, Race thought Even if Van Lewen did manage to get a few shots off, it wouldn’t be enough. The natives would still kill them all, so overwhelming were their numbers.

  “Van Lewen,” Race said. “Don’t . . .”

  “Sergeant Van Lewen,” Nash said from over by the altar, where he stood with an arrow poised next to his head. “Lower your weapon.”

  Van Lewen did so. As soon as he did, the natives immediately moved forward, seized the Americans’ high-powered weapons.

  An older-looking man with a long gray beard and wrinkled olive skin stepped forward. He didn’t bother carrying a longbow. He appeared to be the chieftain of this tribe.

  Another man walked at the chieftain’s side and as soon as he saw him, Race blinked in disbelief.

  This second man wasn’t a native at all, but rather was a stout-looking Latin-American man. He was deeply tanned and dressed in the manner of the Indians, but even the liberal doses of ceremonial paint that he wore on his face and chest couldn’t hide his decidedly urban features.

  As the chieftain glared at Nash—standing in front of the shrine like a thief caught with his hands in the till—he growled something in his native tongue.

  The Latin-American man at his side listened attentively and then offered some advice in reply.

  “Hmph,” the chieftain grunted.

  Race stood next to Renée, the two of them surrounded by five arrow-bearing Indians.

  Just then one of the Indians stepped forward—curious—and touched Race on the cheek, as if testing to see if his white skin was real.

  Race pulled his face away, jerking it clear.

  As he did so, however, the Indian shrieked in astonishment, causing everyone to turn. He hurried over to the chieftain, shouting, “Rumaya! Rumaya!”

  The chieftain immediately came over to where Race stood, with his white adviser behind him. The old chieftain stood before Race, appraising him coldly while at the same time the Indian who had touched Race’s face pointed at his left eye and said, “Rumaya. Rumaya.”

  Abruptly, the chieftain grabbed Race’s chin and turned it hard to the right.

  Race didn’t resist

  The chieftain evaluated his face in silence, inspecting the triangular brown birthmark situated underneath his left eye. Then the chieftain licked his finger and began rubbing the birthmark, as if testing to see if it would come off. It didn’t.

  “Rumaya . . .” he breathed.

  He turned to his Latin-American adviser and said some-thing in Quechuan. The adviser whispered something in re-turn, keeping his voice low and respectful, to which the old chieftain shook his head and pointed emphatically at the square-shaped pit that had been carved into the wall of the moat.

  Then the chieftain turned on his heel and barked an order to his people.

  The Indians quickly herded everyone except Race into the bamboo cage between the trees.

  For his part, Race was shoved toward the muddy pit adjacent to the moat.

  The Latin-American adviser fell into step beside him.

  “Hello,” the man said in heavily accented English, taking Race completely by surprise.

  “Hey there,” Race said. “You, ah, want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  “These people are the direct descendants of a remote Incan tribe. They observed that you are possessed of the Mark of the Sun—that birthmark under your left eye. They think you might be the second coming of their savior, a man they know as the Chosen One. But they want to test you first to be sure.”

  “And how exactly are they going to test me?”

  “They will put you in the pit and then they will open the gate that separates it from the moat, allowing one of the caimans to enter the pit with you. Then they will see who survives the subsequent confrontation, you or the caiman. You see, according to their prophecy—”

  “I know,” Race said. “I’ve read it. According to the prophecy the Chosen One will bear the Mark of the Sun, and be able to fight with great lizards and save their spirit.”

  The man looked at Race askance. “You’re an anthropologist?”

  “A linguist. I’ve read the Santiago Manuscript”

  The man frowned. “You’ve come here looking for the Spirit of the People?”

  “Not me. Them,” Race said, nodding over at Nash and the others as they were placed inside the bamboo cage.

  “But why? It’s worthless in monetary terms—”

  “It was carved out of a meteorite,” Race said. “And now it’s been discovered that that meteorite was made of a very special kind of stone.”

  “Oh,” the man said.

  “So who are you?” Race asked.

  “Oh, yes, I’m very sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself,” the man said, straightening. “My name is Doctor Miguel Moros Marquez. I am an anthropologist from the University of Peru and I’ve been living with this tribe for the last nine years.”

  A minute later, Race was shoved down a thin sloping path that descended into the mud.

  The path was bounded on either side by high earthen walls and it ended at a small wooden gate that opened onto the pit. As soon as Race arrived in front of the gate, it slid open—pulled upward by a pair of Indians standing on the ground above—and he stepped tentatively out into the pit that adjoined the caiman-infested moat.

  The pit was roughly square in shape and it was big—about thirty feet by thirty feet.

  It was lined on three sides by sheer muddy walls. The entire fourth wall, however, was comprised of an enormous gate constructed of a latticework of bamboo “bars.” Through it, Race could see the dark waves of the moat outside.

  To make matters worse, the floor of the pit was covered in a layer of black water—water that sloshed freely in through the criss-crossing bars of the bamboo gate from the moat outside. Its depth where Race was standing was about knee-deep. Its depth in other parts of the pit was indeterminate.

&
nbsp; Well, this is new, Will. What the hell did you do to get yourself into this situation?

  Just then, a rectangular section of the enormous bamboo gate—a gate within the gate—was raised by some Indians standing at the rim of the pit and immediately a wide opening was created in the middle of the larger gate between the pit and the caiman-infested moat.

  Race watched in horror as the gate was lifted higher and higher, making the opening wider and wider. After a few moments it reached its zenith and stopped and there followed a long silence.

  The inhabitants of the village now lined the rims of the pit and peered down into it, waiting for the arrival of one of the caimans.

  Race patted his pockets for any weapons he could use. He was still wearing his jeans and T-shirt and the Kevlar breastplate that Uli had given to him at the mine, and of course, his glasses and Yankees baseball cap.

  No weapons—except for the grappling hook that hung from his belt.

  Race grabbed it. It had a length of rope attached to it, and at the moment its four silver claws were retracted, lying flush against the hook’s handle like an umbrella in the closed position.

  He looked at it for a moment, thinking. Maybe he could use it to climb out of here—

  It was then that something very large slid in through the open gate from the moat.

  Race froze.

  Even though fully three-quarters of its body must have been under the surface, it was still absolutely enormous.

  Race saw the nostrils and the eyes and the rounded armored back protruding above the surface—all moving at the same speed as the big animal cruised ominously through the water. He saw its long plated tail swishing lazily back and forth behind it, propelling it slowly forward.

  It was a caiman and it was huge.

  At least an eighteen-footer.

  Once the massive reptile was fully inside the pit the bamboo gate behind it was lowered back into its slot and locked into place.

  Now it was just Race and the caiman.

  Facing off.

  Good God . . .

  Race sidestepped away from the big beast, backing into a corner of the square-shaped pit, his feet sloshing through the knee-deep water.