“Well, amigos,” he said. “We’re partners. We have what you might call mutual needs. Between us we have a complete map of the floor plan of the Temple. We’ve got what nobody else ever had. Now, assuming that pillar there marks the corner—”
Before he could finish his sentence he saw, as if in a slowed reel of film, Barranca reach for his pistol. He saw the thin brown hand curl itself over the butt of the silver gun—and then he moved. Indiana Jones moved faster than the Peruvian could have followed; his motions a blur, a parody of vision, he moved back from Barranca and, reaching under the back of his leather jacket, produced a coiled bullwhip, his hand tight on the handle. His movements became liquid, one fluid and graceful display of muscle and poise and balance, arm and bullwhip seeming to be one thing, extensions of each other. He swung the whip, lashing the air, watching it twist itself tightly around Barranca’s wrist. Then he jerked downward, tighter still, and the gun discharged itself into the ground. For a moment the Peruvian didn’t move. He stared at Indy in amazement, a mixture of confusion and pain and hatred, loathing the fact that he’d been outsmarted, humiliated. And then, as the whip around his wrist slackened, Barranca turned and ran, racing after the Indians into the jungle.
Indy turned to Satipo. The man raised his hands in the air.
“Señor, please,” he said, “I knew nothing, nothing of his plan. He was crazy. A crazy man. Please, Señor. Believe me.”
Indy watched him a moment, then nodded and picked up the pieces of the map.
“You can drop your hands, Satipo.”
The Peruvian looked relieved and lowered his arms stiffly.
“We’ve got the floor plan,” Indy said. “So what are we waiting for?”
And he turned toward the Temple entrance.
The smell was the scent of centuries, the trapped odors of years of silence and darkness, of the damp flowing in from the jungle, the festering of plants. Water dripped from the ceiling, slithered through the mosses that had grown there. The passageway whispered with the scampering of rodent claws. And the air—the air was unexpectedly cold, untouched by sunlight, forever shaded. Indy walked ahead of Satipo, listening to the echoes of their footsteps. Alien sounds, he thought. A disturbance of the dead—and for a moment he was touched by the feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, like a plunderer, a looter, someone intent on damaging things that have lain too long in peace.
He knew the feeling well, a sense of wrongdoing. It wasn’t the sort of emotion he enjoyed entertaining because it was like having a boring guest at an otherwise decent dinner party. He watched his shadow move in the light of the torch Satipo carried.
The passageway twisted and turned as it bored deeper into the interior of the Temple. Every now and then Indy would stop and look at the map, by the light of the torch, trying to remember the details of the layout. He wanted to drink, his throat was dry, his tongue parched—but he didn’t want to stop. He could hear a clock tick inside his skull, and every tick was telling him, You don’t have time, you don’t have time . . .
The two men passed ledges carved out of the walls. Here and there Indy would stop and examine the artifacts that were located on the ledges. He would sift through them, discarding some expertly, placing others in his pockets. Small coins, tiny medallions, pieces of pottery small enough to carry on his person. He knew what was valuable and what wasn’t. But they were nothing in comparison to what he’d really come for—the Idol.
He moved more quickly now, the Peruvian rushing behind him, panting as he hurried to keep up. And then Indy stopped suddenly, joltingly.
“Why have we stopped?” Satipo asked, his voice sounding as if his lungs were on fire.
Indy said nothing, remained frozen, barely breathing. Satipo, confused, took one step toward Indy, went to touch him on the arm, but he too stopped and let his hand freeze in midair.
A huge black tarantula crawled up Indy’s back, maddeningly slowly. Indy could feel its legs as they inched toward the bare skin of his neck. He waited, waited for what seemed like forever, until he felt the horrible creature settle on his shoulder. He could feel Satipo’s panic, could sense the man’s desire to scream and jump. He knew he had to move quickly, yet casually so Satipo would not run. Indy, in one smooth motion, flicked his hand over his shoulder and knocked the creature away into the shadows. Relieved, he began to move forward but then he heard Satipo’s gasp, and turned to see two more spiders drop onto the Peruvian’s arm. Instinctively, Indy’s whip lashed out from the shadows, throwing the creatures onto the ground. Quickly, Indy stepped on the scuttling spiders, stomping them beneath his boot.
Satipo paled, seemed about to faint. Indy grabbed him, held him by the arm until he was steady. And then the archaelogist pointed down the hallway at a small chamber ahead, a chamber which was lit by a single shaft of sunlight from a hole in the ceiling. The tarantulas were forgotten; Indy knew other dangers lay ahead.
“Enough, Señor,” Satipo breathed. “Let us go back.”
But Indy said nothing. He continued to gaze toward the chamber, his mind already working, figuring, his imagination helping him to think his way inside the minds of the people who had built this place so long ago. They would want to protect the treasure of the Temple, he thought. They would want to erect barricades, traps, to make sure no stranger ever reached the heart of the Temple.
He moved closer to the entrance now, moving with the instinctive caution of the hunter who smells danger on the downwind, who feels peril before he can see signs of it. He bent down, felt around on the floor, found a thick stalk of a weed, hauled it out—then reached forward and tossed the stalk into the chamber.
For a split second nothing happened. And then there was a faint whirring noise, a creaking sound, and the walls of the chamber seemed to break open as giant metal spikes, like the jaws of some impossible shark, slammed together in the center of the chamber. Indiana Jones smiled, appreciating the labors of the Temple designers, the cunning of this horrible trap. The Peruvian swore under his breath, crossed himself. Indy was about to say something when he noticed an object impaled on the great spikes. It took only a moment for him to realize the nature of the thing that had been sliced through by the sharp metal.
“Forrestal.”
Half skeleton. Half flesh. The face grotesquely preserved by the temperature of the chamber, the pained surprise still apparent, as if it had been left unchanged as a warning to anybody else who might want to enter the room. Forrestal, impaled through chest and groin, blackened blood visible on his jungle khakis, death stains. Jesus, Indy thought. Nobody deserved to go like this. Nobody. He experienced a second of sadness.
You just blundered into it, pal. You were out of your league. You should have stayed in the classroom. Indy shut his eyes briefly, then stepped inside the chamber and dragged the remains of the man from the tips of the spikes, laying the corpse on the floor.
“You knew this person?” Satipo asked.
“Yeah, I knew him.”
The Peruvian made the sign of the cross again. “I think, Señor, we should perhaps go no further.”
“You wouldn’t let a little thing like this discourage you, would you, Satipo?” Then Indy didn’t speak for a time. He watched the metal spikes begin to retract slowly, sliding back toward the walls from which they’d emerged. He marveled at the simple mechanics of the arrangement—simple and deadly.
Indy smiled at the Peruvian, momentarily touching him on the shoulder. The man was sweating profusely, trembling. Indy stepped inside the chamber, wary of the spikes, seeing their ugly tips set into the walls. After a time the Peruvian, grunting, whispering to himself, followed. They passed through the chamber and emerged into a straight hallway some fifty feet long. At the end of the passageway there was a door, bright with sunlight streaming from above.
“We’re close,” Indy said, “so close.”
He studied the map again before folding it, the details memorized. But he didn’t move immediately. His eyes scanne
d the place for more traps, more pitfalls.
“It looks safe,” Satipo said.
“That’s what scares me, friend.”
“It’s safe,” the Peruvian said again. “Let’s go.”
Satipo, suddenly eager, stepped forward.
And then he stopped as his right foot slipped through the surface of the floor. He flew forward, screaming. Indy moved quickly, grabbed the Peruvian by his belt and hauled him up to safety. Satipo fell to the ground exhausted.
Indy looked down at the floor through which the Peruvian had stepped. Cobwebs, an elaborate expanse of ancient cobwebs, over which lay a film of dust, creating the illusion of a floor. He bent down, picked up a stone and dropped it through the surface of webs. Nothing, no sound, no echo came back.
“A long way down,” Indy muttered.
Satipo, breathless, said nothing.
Indy stared across the surface of webs toward the sunlit door. How to cross the space, the pit, when the floor doesn’t exist?
Staipo said, “I think now we go back, Señor. No?”
“No,” Indy said. “I think we go forward.”
“How? With wings? Is that what you think?”
“You don’t need wings in order to fly, friend.”
He took out his whip and stared up at the ceiling. There were various beams set into the roof. They might be rotted through, he thought. On the other hand, they might be strong enough to hold his weight. It was worth a try, anyhow. If it didn’t work, he’d have to kiss the idol good-bye. He swung the whip upward, seeing it coil around a beam, then he tugged on the whip and tested it for strength.
Satipo shook his head. “No. You’re crazy.”
“Can you think of a better way, friend?”
“The whip will not hold us. The beam will snap.”
“Save me from pessimists,” Indy said. “Save me from disbelievers. Just trust me. Just do what I do, okay?”
Indy curled both hands around the whip, pulled on it again to test it, then swung himself slowly through the air, conscious all the time of the illusory floor underneath him, of the darkness of the pit that lay deep below the layers of cobwebs and dust, aware of the possibility that the beam might snap, the whip work itself loose, and then . . . but he didn’t have time to consider these bleak things. He swung, clutching the whip, feeling air rush against him. He swung until he was sure he was beyond the margins of the pit and then he lowered himself, coming down on solid ground. He pushed the whip back across to the Peruvian, who muttered something in Spanish under his breath, something Indy was sure had religious significance. He wondered idly if there might exist, somewhere in the vaults of the Vatican, a patron saint for those who had occasion to travel by whip.
He watched the Peruvian land beside him.
“Told you, didn’t I? Beats traveling by bus.”
Satipo said nothing. Even in the dim light, Indy could see his face was pale. Indy now wedged the handle of the bullwhip against the wall. “For the return trip,” he said. “I never go anywhere one way, Satipo.”
The Peruvian shrugged as they moved through the sunlit doorway into a large domed room, the ceiling of which had skylights that sent bands of sunlight down on the black-and-white tiled floor. And then Indy noticed something on the other side of the chamber, something that took his breath away, filled him with awe, with a pleasure he could barely define.
The Idol.
Set on some kind of altar, looking both fierce and lovely, its gold shape glittering in the flames of the torch, shining in the sunlight that slipped through the roof—the Idol.
The Idol of the Chachapoyan Warriors.
What he felt then was the excitement of an overpowering lust, the desire to race across the room and touch its beauty—a beauty surrounded by obstacles and traps. And what kind of booby trap was saved for last? What kind of trap surrounded the Idol itself?
“I’m going in,” he said.
The Peruvian now also saw the Idol and said nothing. He stared at the figurine with an expression of avarice that suggested he was suddenly so possessed by greed that nothing else mattered except getting his hands on it. Indy watched him a moment, thinking, He’s seen it. He’s seen its beauty. He can’t be trusted. Satipo was about to step beyond the threshold when Indy stopped him.
“Remember Forrestal?” Indy said.
“I remember.”
He stared across the intricate pattern of black-and-white tiles, wondering about the precision of the arrangement, about the design. Beside the doorway there were two ancient torches in rusted metal holders. He reached up, removed one, trying to imagine the face of the last person who might have held this very torch; the span of time—it never failed to amaze him that the least important of objects endured through centuries. He lit it, glanced at Satipo, then bent down and pressed the unlit end against one of the white tiles. He tapped it. Solid. No echo, no resonance. Very solid. He next tapped one of the black tiles.
It happened before he could move his hand away. A noise, the sound of something slamming through the air, something whistling with the speed of its movement, and a small dart drove itself into the shaft of his torch. He pulled his hand away. Satipo exhaled quietly, then pointed inside the room.
“It came from there,” he said. “You see that hole? The dart came from there.”
“I also see hundreds of other holes,” Indy said. The place, the whole place, was honeycombed with shadowy recesses, each of which would contain a dart, each of which would release its missile whenever there was pressure on a black tile.
“Stay here, Satipo.”
Slowly, the Peruvian turned his face. “If you insist.”
Indy, holding the lit torch, moved cautiously into the chamber, avoiding the black tiles, stepping over them to reach the safe white ones. He was conscious of his shadow thrown against the walls of the room by the light of the torch, conscious of the wicked holes, seen now in half-light, that held the darts. Mainly, though, it was the idol that demanded his attention, the sheer beauty of it that became more apparent the closer he got to it, the hypnotic glitter, the enigmatic expression on the face. Strange, he thought: six inches high, two thousand years old, a lump of gold whose face could hardly be called lovely—strange that men would lose their minds for this, kill for this. And yet it mesmerized him and he had to look away. Concentrate on the tiles, he told himself. Only the tiles. Nothing else. Don’t lose the fine edge of your instinct here.
Underfoot, sprawled on a white tile and riddled with darts, lay a small dead bird. He stared at it, sickened for a moment, seized by the realization that whoever had built this Temple, whoever had planned the traps, would have been too cunning to booby trap only the black tiles: like a wild card in a deck, at least one white tile would have been poisoned.
At least one.
What if there were others?
He hesitated, sweating now, feeling the sunlight from above, feeling the heat of the torch flame on his face. Carefully, he stepped around the dead bird and looked at the white tiles that lay between himself and the Idol as if each were a possible enemy. Sometimes, he thought, caution alone doesn’t carry the day. Sometimes you don’t get the prize by being hesitant, by failing to take the final risk. Caution has to be married with chance—but then, you need to know in some way the odds are on your side. The sight of the Idol drew him again. It magnetized him. And he was aware of Satipo behind him, watching from the doorway, no doubt planning his own treachery.
Do it, he said to himself. What the hell. Do it and caution be damned.
He moved with the grace of a dancer. He moved with the strange elegance of a man weaving between razor blades. Every tile now was a possible land mine, a depth charge.
He edged forward and stepped over the black squares, waiting for the pressure of his weight to trigger the mechanism that would make the air scream with darts. And then he was closer to the altarpiece, closer to the idol. The prize. The triumph. And the last trap of all.
He paused again. His
heart ran wildly, his pulses thudded, the blood burned in his veins. Sweat fell from his forehead and slicked across his eyelids, blinding him. He wiped at it with the back of his hand. A few more feet, he thought. A few more feet.
And a few more tiles.
He moved again, raising his legs and then gently lowering them. If he ever needed balance, it was now. The idol seemed to wink at him, to entice him.
Another step.
Another step.
He put his right leg forward, touching the last white tile before the altar.
He’d made it. He’d done it. He pulled a liquor flask from his pocket, uncapped it, drank hard from it. This one you deserve, he thought. Then he stuck the flask away and stared at the idol. The last trap, he wondered. What could the last trap be? The final hazard of all.
He thought for a long time, tried to imagine himself into the minds of the people who’d created this place, who’d constructed these defenses. Okay, somebody comes to take the idol away, which means it has to be lifted, it has to be removed from the slab of polished stone, it has to be physically taken.
Then what?
Some kind of mechanism under the idol detects the absence of the thing’s weight, and that triggers—what? More darts? No, it would be something even more destructive than that. Something more deadly. He thought again; his mind sped, his nerves pulsated. He bent down and stared around the base of the altar. There were chips of stone, dirt, grit, the accumulation of centuries. Maybe, he thought. Just maybe. He took a small drawstring bag from his pocket, opened it, emptied out the coins it contained, then began to fill the bag with dirt and stones. He weighed it in the palm of his hand for a while. Maybe, he thought again. If you could do it quickly enough. You could do it with the kind of speed that might defeat the mechanism. If that was indeed the kind of trap involved here.
If if if. Too many hypotheticals.
Under other circumstances he knew he would walk away, avoid the consequences of so many intangibles. But not now, not here. He stood upright, weighed the bag again, wondered if it was the same weight as the idol, hoped that it was. Then he moved quickly, picking up the idol and setting the bag down in its place, setting it down on the polished stone.
The Adventures Of Indiana Jones Page 2