Kachina

by Rada, J. R.

  Perhaps the dark kachinas will display her body. Perhaps they will not. It does not matter. Will you lead the Sun Clan to Tu´waqachi? It is your destiny.

  As I promised, I will lead them, but I am not finished here yet, David told the Sun Clan leader.

  Ma´saw stood up. The Fourth World is our destiny. We have lived up to the teachings of Taiowa. Now it is time for us to venture out to Tu´waqachi and take our place once again beside our brothers.

  David crossed his arms over his chest. What makes you think the Sun Clan deserves to venture onto the surface?

  It is our destiny...

  David cut him off. No. Show me that your people are worthy to live on the surface. Show me that you are truly no longer of the Bow Clan. Would Taiowa have you abandon the woman of the one you ask to lead you to your destiny? David advanced on Ma´saw and stood in front of him. He wanted to grab Ma´saw’s tunic and shake him, but he restrained himself. Ma´saw might think David was attacking him and call for help. Help us find the entrance to the central temple and the woman. Then we shall lead your people to the Fourth World.

  Ma´saw studied David for a minute in silence. If we lead you to the central temple, you will be killed and we will have no one to lead us to the surface. The central temple is an evil place. Even the Bow Clansmen are afraid to enter it. They only do so if they have to.

  We can’t return to the Fourth World until we know the fate of the woman.

  Ma´saw considered this. If you wish to die, so be it. I will lend you one quati. No more. I will not send good warriors to die on a fool’s mission.

  That will be enough, David answered without knowing how many men would be needed, but he was in no position to ask for more.

  The group of twelve men stopped at the edge of the huge stone structure. Gary slipped his bulging knapsack from under his tunic and set it on the ground in front of him.

  David wondered if Sarah was really somewhere within this pyramid. And if she was, was she alive or had she been killed like Christine? A lot could have happened in the week it had taken them to reach Kuskurza. David felt Sarah was alive, but was it only because he wanted her to be? According to his watch, it had been seven days since he and Gary had entered the caverns to try and rescue Sarah. If she and the Bow Clan had been travelling at the same rate as he and Gary, Sarah should have arrived only a few hours before David and Gary. Certainly no more than a day earlier. Sarah had to be alive. She had to be. He couldn’t be late this time.

  The nearest entrance is around this corner about thirty sans along the wall. There will be guards, a voice said in David’s head. He still wasn’t sure who was addressing him since all of the ten Sun Clansmen were staring at him.

  David turned to Gary. “The entrance is around the corner. He says there are guards.”

  Gary slid on his stomach the few feet to the corner of the structure. He kept low as he looked around the corner. He could see two guards standing about forty feet away from the corner. They stood straight and unmoving like statues.

  He looked back to David and whispered, “There’s no cover anywhere near them. No way we can sneak up on them. They’ll see us coming as soon as we step around the corner.”

  David glanced at the langher one of the Sun Clansmen was holding. Can I use that? he asked.

  The Sun Clansmen glanced at the langher, then David. Yes, but you cannot shoot the Bow Clansmen with it.

  Why not?

  To get within the range where the bolt from the langher would kill would place you in the open. The Bow Clansmen could just as easily kill you if you are too slow.

  David sighed and stared at the pistol in his waistband. Gary had given it to him when they left the hidden pueblo. He pulled it out.

  “That’s going to make a lot of noise,” Gary said.

  “So? They won’t know what it is. Besides, we’re going to have to make a lot louder noise sooner or later.”

  Gary shrugged and pulled his pistol out. “I’ll take the one further away. You take the one closer.”

  David nodded and squatted down next to Gary at the corner.

  “Aim for their heads. We can’t give them a chance to send out a telepathic warning to the others,” David said.

  “That makes for a lot smaller target and I’m no marksman,” Gary replied.

  “Yes, but it also makes for a lot fewer targets later on.”

  David braced his arm against the stone wall and took aim through the metal sights. The Sun Clansmen clustered around them to watch what would happen.

  “On three,” Gary whispered. “One.”

  David took a deep breath and held it.

  “Two.”

  He sighted the nearer Bow Clansmen through the pistol sights again.

  “Three.”

  David squeezed the trigger.

  Two of the Sun Clansmen yelped at the sound of the two mini-explosions. The Bow Clansman nearest David grabbed his head and fell. The second Bow Clansman turned to face them.

  The Bow Clansman fired his langher. The yellow bolt of electricity fell into the ground about six feet in front of David. He jumped back, pointed the pistol at the Bow Clansman and fired again. A red spot blossomed on the Bow Clansman’s head and he fell in a heap on the ground.

  The quati of Sun Clansmen smiled at the sight of the dead Bow Clansmen. One of them reached out and touched the barrel of Gary’s pistol, but quickly pulled his hand back when he felt the hot metal.

  Others will come, one of the Sun Clansmen told David. The one who fired the langher had time to warn the others. We must work quickly.

  When David told Gary this, Gary snatched up his knapsack and started running along the edge of the wall. He stopped between the two dead Bow Clansmen. He felt along the wall for the seam of the doorway.

  David tried not to look at the dead Bow Clansmen. He had never killed a man before. Then he remembered the speared Bow Clansman from his first time lost in the caves.

  Gary found the seam and he pulled a large ball of what looked to David to be orange Play-Doh modeling clay out of his knapsack. David realized it was plastic explosives. Gary took the ball out of the plastic bag and kneaded it in his hands. After he broke off a piece the size of a golf ball and jammed it into the seam of the pyramid, Gary put the rest of the explosive ball back in the bag and took out two black boxes. He stuck the smaller of the two boxes into the orange ball and ran a pair of wires from the small black box back to the corner of the pyramid.

  “Better tell them to get out of the way. There’s going to be a lot of stone flying through the air in few moments,” Gary told David.

  David relayed the message to the Sun Clansmen as Gary hooked the wires to the larger black box he was still holding. The Sun Clansmen quickly ran from the side of the pyramid to the corner where David and Gary were squatting.

  When the last of the Sun Clansmen ran around the corner, Gary flipped the switch on the box.

  David heard the sound of the explosion first. A loud “poof,” quickly followed by a thundering “boom.” The pyramid shook so fiercely, he thought the whole thing would collapse in on itself.

  The pyramid exploding. Just like in his dreams. Then he remembered what had followed the temple exploding. The dark kachinas.

  Gary turned to him, and said, “Let’s go.”

  Sarah could tell she was alone. The air felt light, not as thick as it had when she had been attacked, and the darkness didn’t seem to be quite as dark. It had been a long time since she had felt another presence near her. She wasn’t sure how long, though, time moved at a different pace in total darkness. Whatever had been attacking her seemed to have tired and left her alone.

  The floor shook slightly or at least she thought it did.

  She touched her shoulder where the thing had bitten her. It didn’t feel moist so she doubted she was bleeding.

  Sarah felt around herself until she felt the cold surface of the stone wall. Then she began her search for an exit.

  In the distance she heard a
shuffling noise moving closer to her. Was the thing in the dark coming after her again?

  The rumbling in the floor grew louder and more violent. Sarah steadied herself against the wall and wondered if this was what an earthquake felt like underground. The floor pitched to one side. She staggered, but she managed to keep herself from falling.

  Off to her left, a thin line of dim light appeared in the darkness. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it was light. She ran for it.

  When she reached the crack of light, it had grown larger. She realized it was the crack around the door she had been thrown through by the Bow Clansmen. The quake had broken the door’s tight seam.

  Sarah leaned on the door wondering if it was open or if the quake had jammed it so it could never be opened. The thought scared her. How long could she live in the darkness with that thing that had bitten her?

  Where was it anyway? Was it staying away from the light? She hoped so.

  Sarah looked around wondering if the thing was watching her from the darkness. It was scared of the light apparently. Even her matches had hurt it, and this light was much larger, though not any brighter. She would be safe here.

  The door moved slightly and Sarah threw her entire one-hundred-and-ten pounds against it. She felt a brief pain in her shoulder, but then the door flung open sprawling her into the hallway.

  She was in the light again! She was safe from the thing in the room. It wouldn’t venture into the lighted hallway.

  Sarah looked down the hall in the direction the Bow Clansmen had brought her. She glanced over her shoulder into the dark room wondering if whatever was in there would come after her. She climbed to her feet and started running.

  CHAPTER 58

  Gary didn’t like the silence that the explosion left behind in the giant chamber. It reminded him too much of the silence in the caves, and even though this place was part of the caves, it was nothing like the caves. He kept a tight grip on the pistol. It was a standard police revolver that he had brought on the trip as protection against night-time prowlers around the camp site. The prowlers hadn’t come from around the camp site, though. They had come from beneath it.

  He had expected to run into an army of Bow Clansmen once he walked into the central temple, but there was no one. Furthermore, there were no sounds of anyone in the central temple approaching them. It was like the place was deserted. David had told him that the Bow Clan was afraid of this place, but he expected to find more than just two guards protecting it.

  The Sun Clansmen hesitated near the entrance afraid to enter the hallway.

  Gary turned to David and said, “Tell them to get in here. We need to know where to go. Those Bow Clansmen aren’t going to wait for long.”

  David nodded and turned to the Sun Clansmen. Gary waited anxiously to receive an answer. David grimaced as he apparently carried on a silent argument with the Sun Clansmen. Finally, the pale men began to move through the rubble ahead of Gary.

  David followed closely behind them. He walked so fast that he had to keep stopping to wait for everyone else to catch up. The Sun Clansmen seemed all too willing to allow David to take the lead.

  Gary turned a corner in the pyramid and heard a humming noise. David speeded up his pace to a slow jog. Gary wondered what the Sun Clansmen were telling David. Gary purposefully slowed as he tried to place the sound. He was sure he had heard it before.

  It sounded like electricity running through overhead wires.

  “David, stop!” Gary yelled.

  David glanced over his shoulder. Then it was as if he ran into an invisible wall. His body flattened against the unseen surface. He jerked wildly and then he fell to the ground.

  CHAPTER 59

  David felt pain. Every nerve in his body cried out at once as he fell. He supposed hitting the stone floor hurt him, but it was so minor compared to the other pains he felt that he was barely aware he had fallen.

  A familiar voice whispered to him somewhere in the back of his mind, but it was drowned out by the pain.

  His heart raced until it felt like it would explode from his chest. Then it began to slow, too slow. He thought he could feel all the blood in his body stopping.

  Was there a poultice the Sun Clan could push into his mouth this time that would heal him and stop the pain? He doubted it.

  “David.”

  David sighed at the sound of his name. Sarah spoke to him in her rich, melodic voice. He hoped she was all right wherever she was. He didn’t want to think of what would happen to her if he and Gary couldn’t get her out of the central temple.

  “David.”

  His mind floated free from his body in much the same way he felt right before he had his visions of the Bow Clan. David followed the passages of the central temple to a spiraling passageway that descended into the ground. He followed the tunnel deeper into the ground. He didn’t know how the tunnel could go any deeper. They had entered the central temple on the bottom floor. There must be more levels of passages beneath Kuskurza.

  “David.”

  Sarah’s voice beckoned him in the opposite direction, but he resisted. There was something down here he should see. He could feel it pulling at his mind.

  The curving passage turned into a straight hallway at the bottom of its descent. David stopped and hovered above the floor. He could see the rows of flashlight-like torches illuminating the hallway, but at the other end there was only utter darkness. There were no torches within the darkness. No light to tell him what lay at the other end of the hallway.

  Sarah ran down the hallway toward him. He didn’t understand why she was running. Nothing was behind her. Then, as David watched, the furthest pair of torches blinked out. The darkness was moving toward the surface. It was like India ink, obscuring everything as it rolled over it.

  “David!” she screamed.

  David felt his body rise slightly and then he was rocking. His pain receded slightly. He felt a hand brush back his hair and his heart raced. A splash of cold water hit him in the face. His eyes snapped open. He had a few moments of blurriness, and he panicked thinking the blindness he had been expecting since he was rescued from the cave had finally come. Then the images melted together and David saw Gary standing over him.

  “What happened?” David asked.

  “You nearly died. You ran into some sort of electric wall and almost fried yourself.”

  David pushed himself into a sitting position. His arms shook and he nearly fell back. “You tried to warn me, didn’t you?” he asked Gary as he vaguely remembered Gary’s shouted warning.

  Gary nodded. “I recognized the sound, but too late.”

  “No, not too late. I slowed down enough so I didn’t run full force into the field. If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be talking now.” David paused. “The explosion freed the dark kachinas.”

  “If they’re as bad as you say, we’ve got to get out of here now,” Gary said.

  David put his hand on Gary’s arm. “You wait for me outside the temple. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Why? You need someone to help you get out of this place. You can barely walk.”

  David pushed himself to his feet. He swayed a little, but he managed to stay standing.

  “I know where Sarah is. I have to help her, the dark kachinas are after her,” David said.

  “What can you do? You can’t help her run. She’d have to help you and that would only slow her down when what she needs now is speed.”

  “If it was Christine in danger, would you try to help her?” David challenged Gary.

  “Well, yes, but...”

  David pushed Gary away and started up another hallway. This one wasn’t booby trapped with an electric field. He staggered more than ran, but he eventually started to recognize the passages from his vision.

  “Sarah!” he yelled.

  His voice echoed down the hall, and he waited to hear a reply. When it came, it sounded far away, but it was definitely Sarah. He ran on until he nearly ran into her.

/>   “David,” Sarah said grabbing him by the arm and continuing to run. “It’s after me. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  David looked over Sarah’s shoulder and saw the darkness approaching. He shuddered at the sight. It looked like a giant tidal wave of black water slowly rolling toward him and Sarah. And it was much closer to Sarah than it had been in his vision. It was gaining on her. If they couldn’t find someway to delay the dark kachinas or find a burst of speed within themselves, the dark kachinas would overtake them in another minute.

  David pulled free from her. “Keep running! I’ve got an idea to slow them down.”

  Sarah ran off a few steps and then stopped to wait for David. He reached into his backpack and tossed the light sticks to Sarah. “Bend these until you hear a snap. Then shake them until they glow. Lay them out around the corridor.” She started to say something, but he said, “Just do it!”

  David pulled the two powerful flashlights from his pack and switched them on. He looked up and saw the darkness was only a few feet away from him. Taking a deep breath as if he were going to dive into a pool, David ran into the darkness waving the flashlights.

  Behind him, he heard Sarah scream. Then he heard something else scream, and it wasn’t Sarah. This was higher pitched and drawn out like fingers scratching a blackboard.

  David spun around flashing the lights everywhere he could. The darkness seemed to try and retreat from around him, but he ran with it keeping himself in the center of the darkness. He swung the flashlights like swords, and he hoped they were cutting into the dark kachinas like a sword would.

  He felt something bite him on the back and he spun around. Something hit his hand and knocked one of the flashlights from his grip. It spun off into the darkness and disappeared.

  David gripped the remaining flashlight with both hands and swung it around himself. How long had he been in the darkness? One minute? Two minutes? Was it long enough for Sarah to throw all the light sticks out? It had better be. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could last.