Jake Atlas and the Hunt for the Feathered God

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  “John, it’s a sliding trigger,” Mum called.

  “A what?” I asked.

  “This plinth isn’t just a plinth,” she explained. “It does something else.”

  “Like set off a trap?”

  Mum nodded slowly, considering the coffin and the plinth. “If we move this coffin, it will trigger the Aztecs’ final trap. It will anger Quetzalcoatl and bring about the end of the fifth world by somehow setting off an earthquake that will destroy this entire mountain.”

  She looked at me, and smiled. “Possibly.”

  “If we bring down the mountain,” I replied, “the door seal could shatter. Maybe we can escape.”

  “Maybe?” Pan said.

  “Maybe is better than we had before,” Mum said. “John, you and Pandora need to find a way out of this mountain right now. We’ll give you an hour to get clear, and then we’ll push the coffin from its—”

  “No chance,” Pan said, interrupting. “The only way we’re going to get out of a collapsing mountain is together.”

  “John? You have to get Pandora out.”

  “She said no chance, Jane. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together. That’s how we got this far.”

  Not quite, I thought. We’d argued and split up, and that’s why things had gone so wrong. As much as I wanted them to get to safety, I also knew they were right. We needed them, and they needed us. We were a team.

  Mum pressed her palms against the coffin’s thick crystal. “I’m going to count to three, and then we’re going to push this coffin from its plinth and see what happens. Everybody get ready. Remember your training. If things get crazy, our direction is daylight, wherever we see it.”

  I placed my hands beside Mum’s on the coffin, as she began the countdown.

  “One … two…”

  “Wait,” I said. “Are we pushing on three or after three?”

  “On three,” Mum replied. “It’s always on three.”

  “You never taught us that.”

  “Well, there’s your lesson. All right. One … two…”

  “Wait!” Pan yelled. “Just to be clear, we’re not joking? We’re really going to deliberately cause this whole mountain to collapse on us?”

  “Why would we be joking?” Dad asked.

  “I don’t know. It sounds like a joke!”

  “We can do this,” Dad said. “We can all do this.”

  “So we’re going on three, or after three?” Pan said. “I didn’t hear.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mum sighed.

  Then she shoved the coffin.

  33

  The crystal coffin slid away far more easily than I’d expected, with a smooth movement that caused me to tumble forward into the plinth. It didn’t come off completely; one end remained on the stand while the other dropped down, crushing the skeletons.

  “Guys?” Pan called. “What’s going on?”

  Mum yanked me back from the plinth, as if she expected the whole mountain to collapse on us right there and then. We knelt together on the bones, breathing hard for fear of what might happen next, but at the same time hoping that something did happen.

  “Stay focused,” she warned. “Be ready for anything.”

  I tensed my hand as it rested on the surface of the plinth, trying to stop it from trembling. No, it wasn’t my hand that was shaking, I realized. It was the plinth.

  “Mum…” I hissed. “Something’s definitely happening.”

  We slid further back over the skeleton surface as the shaking grew into shuddering. The plinth began to sink slowly into its grooves in the chamber floor.

  Maybe we could use it as an elevator to take us out of here? I was about to jump on top and call to Mum to follow, but I stopped myself and looked at her instead. Was this the sort of risk-taking she had warned me about?

  “Should we get on?” I asked.

  “Not until we can see what’s down there.”

  Maybe this was all there was to it; this was the Aztecs’ idea of an earthquake. We watched the slab sink, scraping against skeletons as it slid deeper into the ground. I blinked, momentarily blinded as dust rose and stung my eyes.

  “Are you OK?” Mum said.

  “Just dust,” I muttered.

  “What dust?”

  She was right – the plinth was sliding smoothly into the ground; it wasn’t causing any dust to rise. The dust was coming from above, where a thin crack had formed in the chamber ceiling. For a long moment – too long – we stared as the crack grew wider, splitting the snake carving in two…

  “Jake, move!” Mum roared.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me down a second before half of the chamber ceiling caved in. It would have squashed us flat had Mum not pulled me into the gap beneath the crystal coffin, where it rested half-on and half-off the plinth. We huddled together, sheltered from the impact, as the ceiling crashed down around us, crushing bones into powder.

  “Jake! Jane!”

  We crawled from under the coffin, sweeping our arms to clear the bone powder that filled the chamber like smoke – and I saw Dad and Pan. The door slab had collapsed too. We were free! They rushed to us, scrambling over rubble and shoving aside smashed up skeletons.

  I grinned, wiped powdered bone from my face. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  “Jake!” Pan snapped, “why did you have to say that?”

  “Eh?”

  “That wasn’t so bad. Now it’s obviously going to get worse.”

  “Come on, Pan, how much worse can it get than a ceiling falling on us?”

  “Jake!” Mum protested. “Why did you say that now? Of course it can get worse.”

  I helped Mum up from the rubble. “I’d like to see how,” I muttered.

  As if in answer, the chamber walls began to shake. Suddenly, a pile of rubble and shattered skeletons dropped away and vanished, just a few metres from where we were gathered by the plinth. Now another did the same, only even closer.

  “The floor is giving way!” Mum yelled. “Run! Get out of here!”

  We ran, leaping the remains of the door slab, back into the treasure chamber. Behind us I saw rocks and bones drop away as more of the burial chamber floor collapsed. The crystal coffin tipped up and plunged down, like the Titanic going under.

  “Keep moving,” Dad shouted.

  We staggered through the treasure room as rocks rained down from the ceiling, crushing the golden burial goods. Everything was shaking now – the ceiling, the ground, the walls all around us. My feet slipped and I tumbled over just as a crack opened in the ground beneath me. I landed with an arm and a leg on either side of it, staring down into an abyss that was growing wider as the crack spread. I was about to fall when Dad grabbed my arm and pulled me to safety.

  He helped me up and for a second we just stared, spellbound by the sight of the crack opening even wider along the treasure room floor. It looked as if the entire mountain was splitting in two.

  “Come on!” Dad barked.

  I followed him back along the passage to the chasm, where things were even crazier. The Aztecs had thought this mountain was all that was left of their world; well, this really did look like the end of the world. Massive splinters of rock tore from the sides of the chasm, like icebergs breaking from a glacier. They tilted into the space and then fell, plummeting into darkness.

  “What now?” Pan gasped.

  Mum and Dad looked up, searching the walls as if they might spot a safe way out of this – but there was nowhere safe.

  “Look out!” Pan warned.

  We staggered back from the ledge as a chunk of rock fell from higher up the chasm. Streams of water fell with it, and shafts of light beamed from somewhere above. Looking up, we saw a circle of sunlight and swirling cloud.

  “The top of the mountain has caved in!” Dad cried.

  “Daylight!” Pan yelled. “Can we get up there?”

  “Even if we can,” Mum replied, “the whole mountain is coming down. It will take us with it.
We need to get down.”

  They began to shout over each other, trying to agree a plan. I didn’t listen. Instead I breathed in, trying to control my fear and think. I watched another giant rock slab tear from the side of the chasm and fall. My mind cleared and I went into that zone again, eyes moving fast, studying the destruction, my mind instinctively processing the sights and forming a plan that might save us. We had to get down, and maybe there was a way if we timed it right…

  “Follow me!” I called. “Jump when I jump.”

  “Jump?” Pan asked. “Why are we jumping? Mum?”

  Mum had been watching me as I stared around the chasm. She had that look on her face, like she was about to tell me I’d done something wrong.

  She reached and touched my shoulder. “Are you sure, Jake?

  “I… Yes.”

  “Then everyone follow Jake.”

  Now she trusted me? I’m not sure Dad was so certain, but Mum gave him a glare, and he sighed.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  I turned back to the chasm, praying I wasn’t about to get my whole family killed. Then, just as another slice of rock carved from the cliff, I jumped. I fell six feet and landed on top of the rock slab, windmilling my arms to stop myself stumbling off the edge. I crouched to keep my balance as the slice of rock leaned further into the chasm. I glanced back and saw the rest of my family landing behind me on the rock.

  Just before the rock splinter broke from the wall, I leaped and landed on another chunk that had begun to come away from the opposite side of the chasm. I jumped again, landing on an even lower chunk, and then again and again, through sunlight spotlights and past falling rocks, using the leaning slabs as a ladder down the chasm. Smaller rocks plunged from above, smashing against the larger ones and sending shards flying.

  “How much further to the bottom?” Pan screamed.

  I looked down and saw spots of sunlight glinting on water. Broken rocks sank under and vanished. We’d come down far, but there was at least a hundred metres to go.

  “Almost there,” I yelled.

  “That’s a lie!” Pan shouted.

  “Jake, don’t lie to your sister,” Mum called.

  “You’re telling me off? Right now?”

  “Concentrate, Jake. We need to move.”

  I was just about to leap to another rock below when a boulder crashed down onto the one we were on, behind the rest of my family. Instinctively I covered my head, protecting myself from flying shards. I heard a scream and looked back – Mum and Dad were there, but Pan was gone! We all cried out and dropped to our knees. My heart stopped as I looked down over edge of the slab, expecting to see my sister falling to her death…

  “Pan!” I screamed.

  “Down here!”

  “Pandora!” Mum called. “Oh, thank God!”

  Pan had managed to grab hold of a jutting rock on the underside of the shard. She was hanging by one hand. Mum and Dad began to climb down to her, but her fingers were slipping. Pan wouldn’t be able to hold on long enough…

  Move, Jake! Now!

  I didn’t think; I just acted. I yanked the clasp of the bungee cord from my utility belt, jammed it in a crack in the rock, and jumped. The cord unwound from my belt as I fell through darkness … and then jolted to a stop. The bungee line ran out just as I grabbed hold of Pan’s arm as she fell.

  I swung on the line, holding onto her as she dangled below. I only had a weak grip on her wrist. The line was swaying hard, threatening to tear her from my grasp.

  “Stop kicking your legs,” I grunted.

  “I can’t! They’re just doing that! Pull me up!”

  “I’m trying…”

  I gripped her tighter, but now the bungee jerked even harder as Mum and Dad slid down the line to join us.

  I stared up at them, baffled. “What are you doing?”

  “You said follow me,” Dad replied.

  “Follow me on the jumping bit, not on the saving Pan bit!”

  “How were we supposed to know there were two bits?”

  “Who’s going to pull me back up?” Pan asked.

  “Who’s going to pull any of us back up?” I replied.

  “Just get me up!”

  Mum and Dad slid further down and managed to lift Pan higher. We all swung together in a strange sort of hug as the chasm walls shuddered. I doubted we’d manage to climb back up; the bungee clasp wouldn’t hold all our weight for long enough, and the rock slab we’d jumped off was going to fall at any moment. We’d fall with it and it would crush us as we landed. The slab had blocked most of the light from the collapsed mountain top, but enough got through to see it glinting off water about fifty metres below, at the bottom of the crevasse. There was something else down there too, glinting even brighter. Something crystal…

  “So what now?” Pan wheezed.

  “We have to cut the line,” I said.

  “Jake, that drop will kill us even if we land in the water.”

  I looked up to Mum and Dad as we swung harder on the line. “We haven’t used my belt’s sonic force field yet,” I said. “You said it wouldn’t smash through rock, but will it bounce us away from the water, so we don’t hit it so hard?”

  “I … I think it might,” Mum said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Dad replied.

  “I have no idea,” Pan added, “but this line isn’t going to hold us much longer.”

  She was right; we needed to take control.

  “OK,” Pan said. “I’m ready. Dad, cut the line.”

  “What with?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “It’s a bungee cord!”

  “Jake,” Mum said. “What else is left in your belt?”

  “Nothing. We used it all up.”

  “So how do we cut the line?” Pan said.

  “I’ll unclip the belt so we all drop.”

  “We need the belt, Jake,” Mum reminded me. “Unless you have a spare sonic force field in your pocket.”

  “Bite through the line,” Pan said.

  “I can’t bite through it,” Dad replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not a great white shark! It’s a bungee line! It has an extremely high tensile strength. You can’t bite through it.”

  “All right, it was just an idea.”

  “It was a silly idea.”

  “Wait,” Mum said. “I’ve got a great idea…”

  Maybe she did, but we never got to hear it because right then the bungee clasp tore from its crack in the rock, and we all fell.

  34

  In books, heroes sometimes say that time seems to slow down just as they attempt something horribly dangerous. We needed that as we fell towards the base of the collapsing mountain; but if anything, time seemed to speed up.

  We dropped fifty metres though darkness, clinging to each other and screaming. Dad shouted at me to use the sonic force field, but I hadn’t forgotten: my finger was on the button under the clasp of my utility belt. I glanced down, saw the crystal coffin bobbing on swirling water, and I pressed the button three times.

  There was a sound like cannon fire right by my head, so loud it felt like my ears had burst. Then things got really weird. Instead of splashing down, water splashed up at my face as ultrasonic waves blasted in every direction. The sound waves bounced off the water and thrust us ten metres back up into the air. Around us, falling rocks suddenly changed direction as the sound waves fired them against the pit walls. I slammed against a rock wall too, then plummeted into the water and went under.

  Dad pulled me back to the surface, where I could just see him in the light beaming through the collapsed top of the mountain. He was yelling instructions so loudly that veins bulged in his neck, but all I heard was a distant murmur. The sonic blast had messed up my ears. It looked like Pan and Mum had been affected the same way; they were banging their’s and shouting to be heard in the water.

  Another chunk of rock crashed down onto the crystal coffin, sh
attering into shards that flew in every direction. One of the falling rocks would hit us soon; we couldn’t just stay here.

  “Stay here!” Dad screamed.

  Before any of us could protest, he dived underwater. Mum dragged me and Pan closer to her and gave us a thumbs up, as if everything was going to plan.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Pan cried.

  “I was trying to be encouraging,” Mum yelled back.

  “Encouraging? We’re stuck in a pit with boulders falling on us. How could our situation be any less encouraging?”

  Then everything went dark.

  Above us, the slab of rock that we’d fallen from tore even further from the side of the chasm, totally blocking the sunlight. Any moment now it would fall and crush us into pulp.

  Dad burst to the surface. He shouted to us, mouthing the words clearly so we understood. “The water is flowing out through a tunnel. I think we can get through.”

  “John, Alpha Squad could be out there,” Mum warned.

  Dad saw the rock slab looming over the chasm. “We’ll have to take that risk,” he said.

  He was right; we had to get out of here fast. Only, we’d gone through so much, and the emerald tablet was so close… I looked back at the crystal coffin. It was covered in dust and rubble, but hadn’t actually been damaged by the collapsing mountain. It was too dark now to see the emerald tablet inside, but it must have still been there. We had to try to take it with us, didn’t we?

  “Dad, the coffin!”

  “Leave it, Jake, we have to go.”

  “We can’t let Sami down,” Pan screamed. “We can’t have gone through all this for nothing.”

  Dad glared at Mum, hoping she might convince us to give up the coffin and follow him underwater, but Mum shook her head.

  “We have thirty seconds until that rock comes down,” she decided. “That’s enough time if we work together.”

  I don’t know how much time Mum usually allows for removing coffins from collapsing mountains, but her confidence gave me and Pan the courage we needed to swim to it rather than dive down and escape. Dad came with us. We wasted a few seconds scrabbling at the edges of the casket, looking for a way to get the lid off.

  “We’ll never open it,” I said, remembering that only the People of the Snake knew how. “We have to get the whole coffin out.”