by Steve Perry
Mac dumped out his own backpack, put a few things into his pockets. Held up his canteen, looked at it, grinned, and dropped it. “I doubt we’ll have any trouble finding something to drink around here for a while!”
Marie shrugged out of her pack and let it fall. Indy had his gun, his whip, and his hat on his belt.
Together they edged down to a wide spot in the crack that sundered the bottom of the crevasse. “Ready? On three. One . . . two . . . three—!”
They jumped.
Indy was a strong swimmer, but the current in the huge underground river was so fast that even if he hadn’t been roped to Marie and Mac, there was no way he’d be able to move against it. It wasn’t huge, the river, but it was wide enough. He might make it to one side or the other, but there was no real shore as far as he could see in the dim light; it was like being in a railroad tunnel half filled with water. Nothing to climb.
There was enough of the afternoon’s rainy light seeping down through the fissure above so it wasn’t completely dark, though there were some stretches where the gloom was fairly thick.
The only good thing Indy could see was that the river was deep; there didn’t seem to be any white water, or rapids, or rocks upon which to snag or get smashed. The sound of the river was contained by the enclosure, though, and it was too loud to hear anything but a full-out yell.
He could see Mac and Marie bobbing along with him, and both seemed to be treading water well enough to be able to breathe okay.
The river meandered, twisting into tight S-curves, then straightening for a bit before curving again. The scientist in him figured that this was due to the density of the rock; the softer material would probably have worn away faster than the harder stuff. It was easier to hollow out limestone than it was granite, but how long had this waterway been here? A million years? Ten million? No way to tell zipping along as fast as they were; they had to be going four, five miles an hour. Could be an old or mature river, given all the rain, but it was a really fast flow. There must be a fairly steep grade in the equation somewhere . . .
Now and then, the rocky ceiling dropped lower, to a height of no more than a few feet. Fifteen minutes or so along, there was a gap in the wall high and to the right where a section had caved in, leaving a hole big enough to drive a truck through. The light was gray—it looked like another band of showers had arrived, and Indy saw rain coming in through the collapsed wall.
If this tunnel narrowed too much, it might be like the inside of a garden hose, completely filled to the walls, and that would be bad . . .
They came to a maelstrom, water whirlpooling widdershins like a giant bathtub drain. With all three of them paddling frantically, they managed to skirt the edge, barely.
They had little choice about where they were going.
Where it narrowed, the flow moved faster; where it widened, less fast, but slow it wasn’t. The ride wasn’t going to last long at this speed.
Bobbing like three corks, they flowed along the underground waterway.
As they passed under a wide gap in the ceiling, the gray light was bright enough for Indy to notice something swimming in the water not far away, going with the current.
Snakes—! Two, three of them—!
He cursed—
Mac and Marie didn’t seem to hear him, and if the snakes did, they didn’t let on.
Riding his human horse, Boukman cast around, trying to find some sign of Marie. They had not caught up with their prey, and that seemed odd. His zombis were faster, and even though they’d had to swim and climb, they should have overtaken them by now. The tornado’s path had stopped when the funnel had lifted, and the going was slower after that.
Where where they?
Her âme and the cord that connected it to Heaven were nowhere to be found. He frowned. Unless she was dead—and there was no evidence of that—then the only way she could mask it was with a spell that, by rights, she should not have the power to use.
But—she had been exposed to the talisman when it had been dug up. Boukman had been there, and the same exposure, in his weakened state and inside a zombi, had nearly been the end of him. Marie was young and strong, and . . . what if she had absorbed some of the talisman’s vast energies?
He frowned at the notion, but it was one he had to consider seriously. Any mambo or houngan could work small magicks, like watering a plant with a mist sprayer. But if they had a firehose connected to an ocean? Oh, that could be a problem. Without some skill, some practice, attempting to use any major part of that kind of energy would kill them, it would blow them apart as a giant’s breath would a child’s balloon. If, however, they did not try to be greedy, if they tapped but a trickle, and did it with great caution . . . ?
No, Boukman didn’t like this thought at all! The more Marie was exposed to the talisman, the greater her power would grow—if she did it carefully. And she was not stupid, his great-grandniece, he had already determined that. She would know. And to resist him, she would dare to draw energy from the talisman, even though it could well be worth her life if she made a mistake.
They had to find her, and they had to do it quickly, before she grew too strong.
Another risk, but one he had to take. He removed himself from the horse and flew above the island, searching. Finding her light was the only way, and if it cost him most of what Papa Legba had given him, so be it . . .
Floating high in the Other Realm, Boukman extended his senses, searching. He concentrated, narrowing his gaze, shutting out distractions. There were things in this realm that drew attention, and he could not allow them to draw his.
Focus, Boukman . . . Find her . . .
There! There, a glimmer!
Boukman forced power into his gaze, leaching it from his other senses. His hearing grew quiet. Taste, touch, smell, all faded as he reached, reached . . .
Yes! It was her!
But—she was moving too fast, faster than she could possibly walk in the jungle and in a fairly straight line toward the northern coast . . .
A river. They were in a river. They had a boat, or they swam, but that was the only explanation. The storm would flow all the waterways downhill to the sea, flooding as they went.
The Fleuve Caché, the Hidden River—he and his slaves had crossed it but a few minutes past. Yes.
Boukman flew into his horse.
“Back,” he said. “To the Fleuve Caché. They are in the underground waters. Go after them.”
He felt a pain in his chest. It was not the horse’s body, he knew, but his âme. It had cost him to reach out for Marie. He had to rest. He could not go after them himself, it would be dangerous. To be so close and to fail would be unthinkable.
Unthinkable—but he had to keep it in mind. He wasn’t ready to die—he had too many debts to be settled on the other side of life’s gate . . .
TWENTY-NINE
THE TRIO rounded a hairpin curve. Just ahead lay a rock sticking up in the middle of the river. It was a jagged, sharp-edged spire a good six feet higher than the water. It looked like a giant, deformed shark’s fin.
So much for the notion that the water wasn’t shallow.
It would not do to hit that as fast as they were going.
“Rock! Look out for the rock!” Indy yelled.
Marie and Mac looked at him, and he pointed.
They saw it.
“This way!” Indy yelled. They needed to all be pulling in the same direction—
As they drew nearer, Indy saw that Mac would be far enough to the right to clear it; he might make it, but Marie was going to have to hurry—!
“Come on!” he called, trying to tow her along faster—
A swirl in the water in front of him startled Indy. Was it the snakes? He hadn’t seen them in a while—he stopped swimming, just for a heartbeat or two, then realized they were almost at the spire—
Indy, following Mac, was swept past the rock on the right, barely clearing it.
Marie was on the left side. She missed c
olliding with it, thank God, but the rope hit, caught, and Indy felt himself moving toward the back of the rock, which was a good nine feet long. The rope pivoted him inward—
—until the rope parted!
He saw the cut end of the line pop into the air as the water swirled him past the impediment—
“Marie—!”
“I’m here!” she yelled. “I’m okay!”
He saw her, slightly behind him and ten feet away. The rope had been sliced apart, but she was okay. They would have to swim toward each other and tie the rope together, but they were okay.
“Indy! Look out!”
Indy turned and saw what Mac was hollering about—
That rock spire was obviously part a formation. Ahead and to the center of the river was a frothing, foamy patch of white water. Something had to be close to the surface to cause it.
They didn’t want to hit that. Aside from banging into whatever sharp rocks might be hidden just under the water, there was a chance of snagging a foot or leg and being shoved under to drown.
Indy started swimming hard toward Mac.
Marie went in the other direction.
It was close, but Indy managed to stay in the deeper water. The foam boiled up and blocked his view of Marie, and when he was past the white water—
Marie was gone!
“My men cannot find a trail,” Gruber said.
“Nor mine,” Yamada said.
They had followed along the path of the tornado, but the path ended and there were no signs of which way their quarry might have gone, if they had come this way at all.
The rain was not a complete deluge, but steady, and the wind still gusted enough to knock down trees and men alike.
This was hopeless, Gruber realized. Like trying to find a particular grain of sand in a bucket. A very wet and rocking bucket, at that.
“We should return to the village,” Yamada said, echoing Gruber’s unspoken thoughts. “If we move quickly, we can get there ahead of them.”
Gruber nodded. Yes. His soldiers were excellent in the field, they could move faster than civilians, and he had to assume that Yamada’s men were of like expertise. They could plot a course, they had compasses and would not need landmarks nor the sun to do so. “Let us move with all due speed,” he said.
Catch them in the jungle, catch them at the village, it was the same either way, and since they didn’t know where they were but did know where they were going, that was the most reasonable choice to be made here. It was not the way he would have chosen, but things had changed since they’d arrived here.
Slogging through a jungle during a hurricane wasn’t going to be the easiest of hikes, but there was no choice.
The need for a physical body kept Boukman from getting ahead of Marie and her imen blan. Without a horse, he could not ride, and none of his slaves was in position. Even if he could take over or send somebody who might be able to motor to the end of the river to intercept them, it would do no good. On a sunny, calm day, a fast boat might make it the length of the island in time.
It was not a sunny, calm day. No small boat would be safe offshore in a hurricane. He would have to hope that his zombis could catch up to them. Some things, no man could manage; it was up to the gods to decide.
Indy felt a surge of panic—and then a rush of relief—there she was! Marie had been swept toward the left side of the river, and was farther back than he expected.
“Marie! Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer, and she seemed to be in trouble. As he watched, her head went under.
“Marie!”
After a second, he saw her bob back up to the surface. She was struggling, but still treading water. Had she hit the side of that spire? Or a rock he hadn’t seen?
The river took another turn, and the light grew stronger.
Indy looked around. There was another big hole in the wall and roof ahead, and enough of the rubble from that collapse had spilled into the river to make a ragged ramp that offered a way out of the pipe.
Marie was closer to it, but Indy couldn’t tell if she saw that.
“Mac! This way!”
Indy put his face down and began to swim toward the opening. The rope connecting him to Mac went taut, then slackened a bit as Mac started paddling. If they could reach the shore made by the cave-in, they could climb up and out.
The drag of the backpack and his hat didn’t help. He was working hard, but not moving very fast.
Indy lifted his face from the water to breathe and saw that Marie was approaching the pile of rock and earth that projected from the tunnel wall into the river—yes, go for it!
The next time he came up for air, he saw that Marie was on the rocks, scrabbling from the water.
But the current was pulling Indy and Mac along very fast.
Indy dug in, swimming for all he was worth. For a second, he thought about jettisoning the backpack, but he would lose more time stopping to do that than he gained—
Mac couldn’t keep up. The rope went taut again, slowing Indy’s crawl stroke even more.
Marie, meanwhile, had gotten clear of the water, but had collapsed facedown on the bottom of the rubble pile. At least she wasn’t going to drown—
The water’s grip was too strong. As hard as he could paddle and kick, Indy realized that they weren’t going to reach the finger of rock and dirt that stuck out into the water—
They swept past, missing by ten feet.
Trying to swim against the current was useless. After a few seconds, he gave it up.
The river carried them away from Marie. In a few seconds they reached another bend, and she was gone.
Another bend past that, and the noise inside the stone pipe grew louder, the river narrowed, and they began to speed up.
“This can’t be good,” Indy said.
“What?”
Indy shook his head.
Mac had managed to get closer to Indy, they were almost touching, but even so he had to yell loudly for Indy to hear him.
“I think we are coming to the end of the ride!”
“Way ahead of you, pal!”
A spray, fine and misty, filled the air. Another bad sign—that meant water was probably hitting something solid hard. There weren’t any more rocks, no banks to climb onto, nothing to stop them that Indy could see.
The noise got louder. The mist thickened. The river flowed even faster—
—the ceiling ended. There was enough light to see pretty well now, and the river ahead of them—well. A hundred yards away, there wasn’t any river ahead of them, there was only gray sky and the whitecaps of a storm-stirred sea.
Uh-oh.
Indy looked at Mac.
“Good luck, Jonesy—”
“Yeah, you, too—”
At home in his own body, inside a low structure built to withstand the winds of a major storm, Boukman rested. He was not asleep, but he was not altogether awake, either. He was hoping for a sign. Something that would offer the proper direction for him to take.
Outside, the hurricane raged.
THIRTY
IN THE DREAM, Boukman heard something that he had never heard before. A voice, deep, melodious, and what it said was one word:
“Horse.”
Boukman awoke and sat up. The storm was passing—even through the walls, he could feel that the winds, though still howling, were weaker. Usually that was the way of them. The wind and rain would be fierce, and then the hurricane would pass by—a day, sometimes only a few hours, and the rain would be less, the wind dying down. Another day hence, and there might come a cloudless sky under a blazing sun, and save for the destruction and flood left behind, you would not know the storm had come at all—the sky would hold no memory of it.
Horse. What did that mean? Was he to offer himself to a rider? Or did he need to return to one of his mounts?
He could throw the bones. Or he could smoke the magic smoke. Either might give him more clarity.
Or he could just liste
n to his own inner voice. Ride? Or be ridden?
Ride, came the voice inside his head.
He took a deep breath. It would need most of the strength he had borrowed from Papa Legba to send his âme forth yet again. But a bokor who failed to heed his intuition usually regretted it.
Boukman gathered himself.
Indy looked around frantically for something—anything—that he might grab. Anything that he might reach with his whip—
But there was nothing—
And a moment later they were falling—
Boukman felt his zombis and potioned ones below him. They were in the river, floating along. He aimed himself at the strongest of the potioned risen—
—and was swimming, treading water, actually, carried along by the river. He didn’t see any reason to be here—
—and then he did.
Ahead, lying on a pile of rocks and earth to the left side of the rushing river, was a figure dressed in khaki. She was lying sprawled on her face.
Marie.
Boukman’s horse grinned for him. He didn’t see the imen blan, but there was Marie, waiting to be collected. If she was alive, that was good. If not, he would bring her back and use her that way. Dead or alive, she would serve.
Boukman aimed his horse at the shore.
A minute later, he climbed from the river, as did four of his other slaves, two of them True Risen, two potioned ones. The others? Well, no matter.
Marie coughed and spewed up water.
Boukman laughed. Alive and warm was much the better.
The imen blan would not have climbed up and left her here, and the rope around her waist with the frayed end told him the story. They had come down linked, but the rope had been severed. The men must still be in the river, heading toward the cataract at the sea, a kilometer or so away.
“Go and find the imen blan,” he said to the zombis. “Tell them I have Marie. If they want her to live, tell them to follow you. Bring them to the clearing at the sisal plantation. Go!”