the Haunted Mesa (1987)

by L'amour, Louis

  Alone as he had never been, alone with a reality no one could share, facing a situation for which he had no answer and where he could expect no help. Whatever was done he must do himself.

  What of Volkmeer? Well, what of him? Where did his loyalties lie? With a man who had helped him once, long ago? Or with a people who had given him wealth such as he had never expected to own, and which might, by some means, be withdrawn?

  All he had expected of Volkmeer was somebody to cover his retreat, if pursued. Somebody to help him at that last minute when he might be at the end of his strength. He could forget that. He was on his own. Yet, when had it not been so? He had never had any help from anybody. What he had done had been done by him and him alone.

  Something moved in the trees behind him. He dropped his hand to his gun and turned sharply around.

  Chapter XXX

  It was Kawasi.

  She stood alone under the trees, watching him. His eyes swept the trees and brush about her, finding nothing of which to be doubtful.

  "I have missed you." It was not what he intended to say, nor what he wanted to say or should have said, but it was the simple truth. He had missed her.

  "I cannot be long away. They wait for my words."

  She made a quick, inclusive gesture. "This place where we are? This is sacred place. This is special place for my people. Some say it was from here we first went into your world, but I do not know if this be true."

  With one quick glance toward the way he had been going, he turned and walked back to where she stood. "What of Erik?"

  "I know nothing. They have him, I believe."

  "Somehow I must find and free him."

  "It is impossible. Nobody ever escapes the Forbidden."

  "I cannot believe your people--"

  "It is not my people. Those who have him are the Lord of Shibalba, the evil ones. To escape them is impossible."

  "What of your people, led by He Who Had Magic?"

  "It was long ago and had never been tried before. In the dark all were present; By light all were gone. They tried to find us but we closed the ways and they could go no farther. There was much war, but finally they went away and bother us no longer."

  "Come with me to the ruin. There's such a lot I should know."

  They walked on, and she led the way, moving quickly and surely through the trees. She spoke over her shoulder. "This is place where nobody come, only sometimes a priest. All this"--she gestured again--"very uncertain place."

  She left the trees to climb up to a bench that skirted the cliff. "We do not understand, but all this"--she swept a hand to take in the Hole, No Man's, and the mesa of the ruin--"all this is somehow ... disturbed? Is it the word? It is uncertain place. Sometimes all like this, trees, water, cliffs ... other times there is nothing solid, nothing we can be sure of. Sometimes an opening is here, sometimes there. It is like shimmering veil, like spray from a waterfall, and on the Other Side--"

  "It is always this way?"

  "No. It is a sometime way. Then something happens. ... It is not earthquake, but something like, only it is in space. No, not space! It is in the essence of things, the overall! Something happens, makes dizzy. The eyes do not seem to see what is there. Then all is still, slowly everything settle, and after that, no openings! All is close! Close for long, long time!"

  "But when are there openings again? When does it go back?"

  She shrugged. "I do not know. The last time was before I am. Before I am born. Long time before. He Who Had Magic made marks on wall each time of which he knew. In his living time there were two."

  Mike Raglan swore under his breath. So these so-called openings, even the "always" ones such as the kiva, might be closed at any time and remain closed for years. He shook his head irritably. The sooner he could get the hell out of all this, the better. He was perfectly happy with a normal, everyday world of three dimensions, and how did it happen that these Indians, of all people ...

  Still, the Maya or one of their predecessors had devised one of the most perfect calendars. They understood Time, in one sense at least. What was reality, anyway? Might it be nothing but a certain atmosphere of recurring phenomena to which we have become accustomed? And how do we know it is the only such "reality"?

  Our reality today is vastly different from the reality of 1900, for example. The reality of 1900 was of steam trains, horsedrawn drays, Saturday-night baths, and straight razors. If someone had suggested that soon a man might sit in his living room, flip a switch, and see what was taking place in South Africa or Australia, he'd have been thought to be off his rocker. Reality is what is generally accepted as such. Man alters it at his convenience.

  Each of us has a vision of the world that belongs to him alone, and when he dies that world dies with him. Others may share in some parts of it, but none will see it exactly as he does, nor will all experience it in the same way, for they are living with their own vision of reality. Each man's vision of reality is based upon his life experience, the influences of people, places, books, dreams, work, all the various aspects of his existence that go to make up him, or her.

  He shook his head angrily. Forget all that. It was time he gripped what reality he was facing. What he had to believe was that it would be like getting on an elevator and getting off at another floor. He would have to deal with what came and get back on the elevator, with Erik, just as damned quick as he could.

  He paused. "Kawasi? You said the Hole was a sacred place. I've looked around and there is no sign of any long residence there. There is water, lots of it in comparison with what's around here, and there are trees. Did nobody ever live here?"

  She shrugged. "It is unreal place. All seems what is expected and then it is not. Look! Do you see animals here?"

  "I saw the track of a mountain lion. A big one."

  "Hah! It is no lion. Jaguar. A were-jaguar. There is spirit of evil man in him. He follows to kill, to destroy." He knew the stories of werewolves and knew that in Africa there were leopard-men, so why not jaguar-men?

  "There is a place down there where one can go through to your world. I think I even saw the Varanel disappear into it." He explained, telling the story of what he had seen.

  "Maybe there." She shrugged. "But close upon us now is a place. It is said by some to be the place our people left the Third World and came into this. I do not know if this is true. It was there they returned to the Third World." She pointed into the canyon. "It is over there, a place like a stone funnel. What you call funnel.

  "He Who Had Magic sketched a plan showing all the ways. It is very small area, after all. The funnel is hidden place but it will bring you through close to us.

  "All this"--she gestured wide--"is place of no steadiness. I do not know your words, but it is place where nothing can be sure.

  "There is opening where The Hand is. We hear speaking of it from those who knew, but the speaking was long ago."

  They walked on in silence. It had grown quite dark, and although she seemed amazingly sure-footed, he was not. She paused, seemingly aware she was moving too fast for him. Athletic though he was, the altitude was higher here and his breath came harder in the thin air.

  "Where you are?" He was thinking of the gold the old cowboy found, and particularly the map. "Do you know of any ruins there? I mean, very ancient ruins?"

  "Oh, yes! There are stories. Some believe. Some do not. We do not go far from where we live. It is not our way. We hear speaking of old places where now no water is. No one goes there. How old? We do not know."

  "But if there were ruins, there must be water?"

  She shrugged. "Springs go dry. Rivers change course. All is desert."

  They reached the mesa top. The ruin lay dark and silent under a sky of a million stars. He stopped her with a touch on her arm, for something moved in the darkness. It was Chief.

  When he had a fire started and coffee on, he got out some cold cuts and fruit. "I am afraid for you," she said. She glanced at the robe and turban. "This is what
you will wear?"

  "It is."

  "This robe is that of a Jaguar priest. Do you know this?"

  "No, I did not. Is it special?"

  "Not many still live. He Who Had Magic was one. They were men of wisdom, of great knowledge."

  "It will get me where I wish to go, into the Forbidden area after Erik."

  "It is not possible! You do not know what you do! The Forbidden is ... what you call it? A maze? Only The Hand knows all the ways. The Varanel know a little but not all. It is said The Hand preserves himself so, because only he knows the way to his chambers, his private rooms. It is said he appears to them on a balcony above a great hall, and speaks from there in a great voice."

  "And if he dies?"

  "There is always another. I do not know from where."

  "You have seen The Forbidden?"

  "Only from a distance. It is vast, a mountain-building of black stone, polished stone." She pointed across the river at No Man's. "It is like that! It stands alone above the city, not red like that, but all black!"

  They were silent then. He made sandwiches and passed a paper plate to her, then filled their cups. It was very quiet now, very pleasant. The fire took the chill from the air, and outside the door they could see the stars against the black sky.

  Kawasi began to talk, slowly and quietly but in a precise way, speaking as of something learned by rote. She described the outer appearance and size of the Forbidden. It was one gigantic construction, one building that was a city. Johnny had told her it was what was called a citadel. It was a fortress-city above the country below. The walls were sheer. The Lords of Shibalba and the Varanel each had their own apartments, yet each was restricted to an area and there were no areas in common.

  "If same number exist as of old, there are twenty-four Lords, and five hundred of the Varanel. No man knows how many servants, and they not allowed to cross over from one area to another."

  Slowly, trying to forget nothing, she told him what was known. It was little enough and all very general in content. Obviously the place was an intricate maze of passages, tunnels, and rooms, some of the rooms said to be all of glass reflecting one's own image a thousand times but also reflecting all the other mirrors, glass walls, and seeming openings, until one went mad searching for a way out. The description reminded him of the Glass House sideshows from his old carnival days, but obviously on a much vaster scale.

  "And the prison area?"

  "There is none. None we know of. All we know we piece together, little by little, from legends maybe wrong or out of date. Prisoners were just taken to a room and left to be questioned by the Varanel. But we know so little. And that little may not be right and true. When little is known, much is imagined."

  The fire crackled cheerfully and he added a stick or two. It was, he admitted to himself, vastly comforting just to be with Kawasi, to sit quietly with her and not think too much about what was to come tomorrow.

  "What is it like among your people? How are you governed? What is your role?"

  "I am leader--what you call chief. Among us there is no name of position, no what you call title. One is because one is. One is notborn to be leader--"

  "Yet you said you were descended from He Who Had Magic?"

  "That does not matter if I am not wise. Among my family there have been many who were wise. So, many leaders. But we cannot command. We can only advise. If we are often wrong, they no longer listen. It is very simple.

  "Much was settled long ago. There are things done and not done, and if something new comes, a council is chosen to decide what is to be done. Often, I sit in council. Now, by their choice, I speak for them. How long this will be, I do not know."

  She paused. "There are some among us who believe we should follow The Hand, that we should abandon our mountains and go to live among the others. I do not believe this.

  "They look down from the mountains and see green fields that lie below. They see orchards and water. Often for us there is small water, and our fields grow dry and crops wither. Then the numbers grow who would go down to The Hand.

  "The Hand has people among us who talk trouble, who speak against me and those who are with me. I do not know what is to happen."

  "Don't they know how rigid is the control by The Hand?"

  "They do not believe, or they shrug and say what does it matter if we eat well? Some shrink from decision. The Hand means power to them. They hope to have some of that power for themselves. In truth, they have been promised so."

  Mike Raglan leaned against the old wall. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. It was a relief just to relax. Yet his mind would not rest. It prowled the edges and corners of the problem like a hound on a scent.

  The Forbidden was apparently a maze, a labyrinthine system of rooms, corridors, and halls, connecting and interconnecting, and built over a space of centuries. If what Tazzoc told him was true, it was possible that no one person now knew the entire area. The organization within the system had been set in motion ages before and proceeded to function from sheer inertia. No children were allowed within those sacred precincts, for children have curiosity which could only be stifled with time and continual conditioning.

  Undoubtedly, even as the Hall of Archives was no longer visited, there were other areas abandoned or forgotten. He knew much of mazes. It had begun with the Glass Houses in the carnivals with which he traveled as a magician's assistant. His Lebanese friend had told him the story of King Minos and the Minotaur. Ariadne had given Theseus a ball of thread, and, fastening one end of the thread, he had unwound it as he found his way through the maze en route to his fight with the Minotaur, half-man, half-beast. He had used Ariadne's thread to find his way back.

  Undoubtedly that was the most famous labyrinth, yet the largest by far was one, long destroyed now, that existed in ancient Egypt. A vaster work by far than the pyramids. Herodotus and Strabo had both written of it: a place of more than three thousand rooms, vast colonnades, enormous halls covering an area estimated to be one thousand feet long by eight hundred broad, and on at least two levels, one of these below ground. The Forbidden, he gathered, was at least twice that size, judging by all he heard, yet even that might be a gross underestimate.

  "Kawasi? I am going over tomorrow. Will you show me the way?"

  She got up and walked outside and he followed, fearful that she would leave him once more. "Kawasi? I must go."

  "I know, but how can I send you to death? For there is no way--no way he can be freed."

  "Will you show me? Or must I chance the kiva?"

  "Oh, no!" She hesitated again and then replied, "So be it. You are stubborn. Nothing I can say--"

  "Nothing."

  "I will show you. I will take you over with me, but then I go to my people. What you shall do, I do not know. One thing: There is one whom you must fear.

  "He is tall, taller than you, and very strong. He has great power also. He enters the Forbidden as he wishes, and we fear he knows much of us. We think he controls the spies among us and influences those who talk of leaving to join the Lords of Shibalba. You will know him if you see him. He has presence, a commanding presence. No one disobey him." She paused. "He sent for me by one of his people. I refused, but he sent word he was coming for me and to destroy us."

  "He has a name?"

  "Zipacna. Whatever you do, beware of Zipacna!"

  Chapter XXXI

  Tomorrow!

  There was no more to be said. He was committed. Leaving Kawasi in the inner room, he bedded down near the drafting table with Chief at the opening, near him. There he could look out at the stars, perhaps for the last time.

  What kind of thinking was that? Nonsense! He would make it. He would find Erik, and they would come back, and so would whoever Erik had with him, no matter how many. Yet this might be his last night on earth as he had known it, for when he returned, if he returned, would it ever seem the same again?

  He smiled grimly into the darkness, and said, half-aloud, "You've been a d
amned fool before, Mike, but this one takes the cake!"

  Looking across the river at the vast bulk of No Man's, he shuddered. The shudder was involuntary, brought on by what unknown presentiment of fear he knew not. No Man's, black, ominous, mysterious. The time was now.

  Nothing, not even the wild windswept vastness of the Chang-Tang would be like this, nor even those strange trails he had followed to the hidden monasteries of the Bonpo, nor his visit to the lost castle of Kesar of Ling. Nothing could be like this.

  There had been magic there, too, and he had not known then what to expect, yet it somehow had seemed fated from his first meeting with the wizened little man in the streets of what was then called Suchow, east of the Jade Gate.

  He had walked knife-edge ridges, followed trails that skirted a gorge three thousand feet deep, with nothing but death promised at the journey's end. He had survived, and he would survive now. But this was a story he would never write, as he had not written those others. There were some things a man kept to himself, always. Some stories had to remain buried inside you. Before that trip into the Kunluns, he had not believed that, but now he knew it was true.

  Lying awake, his dreams lit by the candles of the stars, he thought it out carefully. Every sense must be alert. He must make no misstep. He must enter the Forbidden and walk slowly and quietly across the outer court to the Hall of Archives. Once inside the Hall, he must find the area of maps at once and seek out the chart of the Forbidden.

  He must be ever wary of those Death Doors. He must find Erik and free him, and then they must escape by the quickest possible route.

  What of Kawasi?

  He sat up suddenly.What of Kawasi? She was returning with him, going to her people, but what then? What of him? What of them together? Did she know how he felt? He had not spoken. Well, after a fashion he had. After he had freed Erik, would she come with him? Could she come? Dared she leave her people, whose welfare was in her hands?

  Something seemed to stir in the night, a vast, weird sensation such as he had never felt. It was as if the whole earth gave a slow sigh, and then subsided. For a moment he thought he felt an earthquake, but the earth did not tremble. No rocks fell.