The Jaguar Trials

by Ruth Eastham

  But the animal they were hunting… The jaguar Ben had saved! Why did the professor want the skin so badly? Whatever the reason, Ben wasn’t going to let that liar catch his black jaguar!

  Ben bit at his fist. He was going to get rid of those traps. Every one of them! There were still plenty of hours of darkness left. Time to find the traps; then escape with Yara and Raffie. Luis had said there were four of them, right? All placed somewhere along the trail they’d come in on.

  Ben got to work, using the moonlight on the trail to guide him. He found a long, thick branch and trod slowly, checking each footfall and probing with the stick. The thought of those metal teeth made him shiver a little, despite the muggy heat. The last thing he needed was his own leg caught in them.

  He found the first trap by a turn in the trail, placed in a small hollow along the edge of the track, its jaws stretched wide. Set it off. Ben scoured round for what he needed and found a heavy chunk of wood, which he rammed down on the metal teeth with all his weight. There was a sickening splintering of wood as the log was crushed.

  The trap was heavy, a lot heavier than it looked; solid iron. With a grunt of effort Ben lifted it and lobbed it into the undergrowth, hearing a satisfying whump and the cracking of branches.

  He found another trap – then another, noticing a pattern to their spacing.

  After getting rid of the third trap, Ben stood there, panting. Just one left now. He paced the distance to the next, but found nothing. Could he have missed it? He backtracked, checking the trail and its fringes.

  This is taking too long! He had to find that last trap!

  Ben started to jog, eyes trained on the moonlit path ahead, concentrating hard on where he was stepping; what he might be stepping on. He still had the head torch and put it on to illuminate the patches of shadow. His shirt stuck to him with sweat. His feet pounded the ground, as fast as he dared, searching, searching…

  And then, as the track snaked to one side, Ben skittered to a stop. There it was, the final trap gaping on one side of the path like the dislocated jaws of some grotesque reptile.

  A small smile broke over Ben’s lips. He picked up a heavy branch and moved forward to attack.

  But suddenly the ground softened, making his legs buckle under him. For a brief moment, Ben thought he’d stepped in a swampy pocket, but now the ground was shifting, creaking, snapping, moving downwards. Leaves flew past; broken branches grazed him as the forest floor gave way. Ben clutched about wildly, finding only loose sticks and air. The deadly trap flew past his face.

  And then he was falling, falling…

  His chest slammed the ground. Head struck hard.

  Then nothing.

  There are voices.

  Echoes from somewhere far away. Far back.

  They made us ill, comes a voice that is many voices. Help us!

  There is groaning, coughing; people struggling to breathe.

  “I’m coming,” Ben calls. He tries to get to them; fighting to pass through the dark, waxy leaves.

  He see their eyes, lit by moonlight, pairs of eyes like marks on moth wings.

  A little girl turns towards him and stretches out her hand, and he sees that her round face is a mask of raw welts.

  “Help us,” she whispers to him.

  The eyes burn gold and green, then merge to black.

  A strange whisper lingers in the air. A whisper that is many whispers.

  Find the golden king.

  Restore his power.

  Free us.

  Free…

  Ben woke. His teeth were clenched against something cold and soft. There was the gritty taste of soil in his mouth. The smell of rotting vegetation made him gag and a painful spasm racked his chest. He became aware of night sounds: the clatter of insects; wind through tree branches; the booming howl of monkeys.

  Ben opened his eyes, and black slowly became grey, then silver. He lifted his head. Moonlight shone from a hole several metres above him. A coldness crept along his damp back. The animal pit Luis had dug!

  Ben tried to control his breathing. How long had he been unconscious for? Yara; Raffie. They’re in danger. He had to get to them; tell them about the professor.

  Ben shifted his body experimentally. He ached all over, but there were no stabbing pains – maybe he’d been lucky and not broken anything. The ground felt slightly moist, a bit squidgy; maybe that was what had softened his fall.

  He moved on to his side with a grunt, then dragged himself up to a sitting position. With a sharp breath he tried to climb, but the mud of the pit came away in his hands and he stumbled backwards. He dug in his fingernails to get a hold on the crumbling surface, but again he fell.

  Ben stood there panting. He wiped sweat from his face. One cheek felt swollen, and the tender skin was tacky with blood, with grains of dirt sticking to it. Where were the Batman superpowers when you needed them, he asked himself?

  He shuddered. When dawn came, Luis would find out what he’d done to the traps, and Professor Erskine would know they were on to him. What would he do to them then – to Yara and Raffie?

  Ben felt like shouting at himself for being so stupid. We should have got away when we had the chance!

  It wasn’t even as if they knew where to find the next trial! The clue on the bird had led to a dead end.

  The earth came away in Ben’s fist and he fell again, slamming back on to the floor of the pit. It was impossible!

  The distant howling sounded again.

  Ben hit the wall with his fist in frustration, bruising his knuckles. Stupid! Then again, biting his lip with the pain. But as he brought his hand to strike a third time, he stopped. Something had caught his eye – something on his thumb, reflecting the moonlight. He looked at it, panting.

  Dad’s wedding ring. He fingered the glinting gold circle.

  Ben rested his forehead against the wall of earth. This was how it had felt. After his mum had died. Like being in a pit. A pit you think you will never climb out of, because you’re down so deep and you feel so lost.

  Tears pricked Ben’s eyes, but he swatted them away. He’d got out of that hole. Somehow he’d done it. Little by little. He and dad together, doing the impossible.

  Ben felt his heartbeat steady. Dad was the only family he had left, and he had to help him. Somehow he was going to free himself from this pit as well, and carry on the trials.

  Then Ben saw something else glinting in the moonlight, and he recognized the trap that had fallen with him, its jaws firmly clamped together.

  Hands trembling, he studied the mechanism.

  He gouged a sharp-edged stone out of the ground with his fingertips and used it on a screw of the hinge. At first the head wouldn’t turn at all – but suddenly it shifted, and by twisting the stone hard, he managed to get it out.

  Ben started on the next screw, and after a lot of work, his fingers sore, he had taken the trap apart and freed two curved pieces of metal.

  With a cry of effort, Ben kicked a toehold in the sticky surface and hoisted himself up, one gripping metal claw in each hand. He took another step, and then another, clasping the pit wall, never pausing, not daring to lose momentum, nor to lose his nerve; not allowing the slick surface time to crumble. With small stabbing movements, he got closer to the circle of light.

  Free us.

  The haunting images he’d seen rushed back into his head. Who were those people? He remembered the boy with long, dark hair; the small girl with the round, diseased face. What he’d seen and heard went through his mind as he climbed. It had all seemed so real. Ben felt his jaguar marks hot and uncomfortable as his arm scraped the soil. That girl’s face; her ravaged skin. He jammed his toe into another foothold and swiped the metal claw. He couldn’t get her out of his head.

  Ben kicked another step into the pit wall, remembering what Yara had said. They are the spirits of our people … forest people – our ancestors… Now their spirits haunt the jungle, yearning to be at peace.

  Well, Ben had seen
them, he had felt them, and somehow he had been chosen to help them.

  “I can’t give up!” Ben told himself through gritted teeth as he pulled himself up.

  The hole widened over him. Fireflies flew over it like floating embers. And with a last cry of pain he heaved himself over the lip of the pit and lay there panting, tasting soil, his heart beating wildly against the dark earth.

  Ben rolled over on to his back and let out a long, slow gasp. He tried to collect his strength. Get up! Get to camp! he ordered himself, but his body felt so sore, so heavy, that he allowed himself a few more seconds of rest.

  He had the sensation of something light touching the palm of his right hand. Then something crawled across the skin, and in a reflex he flicked his hand to get rid of whatever it was. There was a fluttering sensation over his knuckles: tickling, persistent.

  There on his hand in the moonlight Ben saw a moth: a huge, bright yellow moth, with feathery antennae, and a dark eye pattern on each dusty wing. He moved his fingers and it rose into the air, dancing there for a few seconds before flitting away. He pulled himself up – and then there was a second one. Then another, and another.

  Ben sat gaping, head tipped back. Now there was a mass of moths, hundreds of them, thousands, streaming by, like flakes of pale gold leaves carried on a river.

  For a moment he was lost in the spectacular sight. What was it, a kind of migration? He knew some happened only under certain conditions; triggered by a change of temperature, for example, or by a full moon. The moths spiralled upwards, streaming together in one precise line. Ben found himself murmuring in wonder, then whispering the shaman’s words: follow the flying gold by moonlight…

  Ben felt his back stiffen; then he was scrabbling in his pocket for his compass, relieved to find it intact from the fall, hands shaking as he took the bearing of the moths streaming overhead.

  They were all flying in exactly the same direction: 54° 35’ west.

  He broke into a limping run, back along the moonlit trail, to Yara, to Raffie, his head buzzing. Follow the flying gold by moonlight. That was it! That was the way they must go next! He picked up speed, weaving his way along the track. That was the way to the Trial of the Howling Heights!

  Then by next nightfall must you complete your quest.

  He had one more day. Only one more day to find El Dorado and free Dad!

  The light of the full moon gave the forest a ghostly glow, and Ben felt the jaguar marks warm on his arm. He saw a thick snake slither quickly out of his way as he sprinted along the path, his feet strangely noiseless; the way strangely clear, despite the sinking moon; the sounds of the forest more acute in his ears. He smelt the sharp scent of the smouldering campfire, then saw its embers through the trees. Ben slowed down his pace, all his senses on alert.

  He got to the edge of the clearing and stopped. Erskine and Luis were back; he could hear snores from inside their tents. But the flaps were closed and there was no sign of movement.

  Stealthily, Ben crept to his friends’ tent. Through the canvas he heard Raffie’s low ragged breathing; Yara mumbling something quietly in her sleep. He slipped in and crept over to Raffie’s bed, pulling open the mosquito net and shaking him awake.

  Rafael stirred, his hammock wobbling. He swatted Ben’s arm away, then twitched awake with a little gasp. Ben pressed a finger to his lips as Rafael’s eyes widened and he fumbled to find his glasses. “What is it? What?”

  “Shhh!” hissed Ben. “They mustn’t hear us!”

  Raffie got the glasses on and blinked through them in alarm. “Ben?”

  Ben gestured Raffie to be quiet, then went over to wake Yara, who immediately sprang from her bed. “What is it?” she said, already seeming wide awake.

  “We’ve got to get out.” Ben grabbed a rucksack from the floor and started to stuff supplies into it. “And it has to be now.”

  “Our route will be from Dead Horse Camp, 11° 43’ south and 54° 35’ west.”

  COLONEL PERCY FAWCETT, 1925

  “So that’s the full story.” Ben grabbed a water bottle and stuffed it into a rucksack. “We all fell for it; now we’ve just got to get out.”

  “How could Professor Erskine do that?” Yara whispered angrily as she pulled down a mosquito net and crammed it in the bag.

  Raffie kept shaking his head sadly and whispering, “I don’t believe it.” He still looked gutted. “What if they come after us?” he hissed. “They’ll hunt us down like they did that little jaguar!”

  “Get your boots on!” Yara chided. “And you heard what Ben said! We only have until the next nightfall to find El Dorado! You won’t get far in just socks!

  “Keep your voices down!” Ben listened out for any noise of the two men waking, his ears straining over the sounds of wailing insects. But the low snoring coming from the professor’s tent reassured him – at least for the moment.

  Raffie’s mouth was a thin, tight line as he stooped to do up his laces. He looked as if he were about to cry. “He gave me a notebook for my research!” he wailed, as though that was the thing he was finding hardest to swallow. “Ben!” he gasped. “You gave him the icons! The bat and the bird!” His face flushed red. “He has no right! We’ve got to get them back!” He paced the tent, shoelaces dangling. “What if we need them, for the trials?”

  “Raffie’s right, Ben,” said Yara. “We cannot leave without the icons.”

  “I know where he put them!” Rafael was already at the entrance to the tent. “Meet you by the trail!”

  “Raffie!” hissed Ben – but before he could stop him, his friend was gone.

  Ben forced his mind into gear. “We’ll need more food with us, Yara, and more water. Luis keeps the supplies in a box by his tent – I’ll go.”

  “I will find a machete!” said Yara.

  Ben nodded. “Be fast.” He pulled the rucksack on to his back as Yara disappeared into the shadows, and made his way towards Luis’s tent. He saw the box of supplies just a few steps away, in the tent entrance.

  But as he reached out for the lid, something moved inside the tent and he stood rooted to the spot, hardly daring to breathe. The seconds felt like minutes. There was the hiss of a lamp, and a yellow glow flooded the inside. Through the gap in the tent flap, Ben saw Luis sat on an overturned bucket, his rifle across his lap. He was cleaning the barrel with an oily rag, in long, slow movements, whistling quietly.

  Ben edged backwards. No way he could risk getting those supplies now. He found Yara waiting at the start of the track, staring wide-eyed at Luis’s lit-up tent. Then he saw a figure moving quickly towards them and his heart skipped a beat – but it was Raffie who appeared, triumphantly holding up the gold bat and bird.

  “Nice one, Raffie!” Ben mouthed, slipping them into the pouch with the spheres. “Now we’ve got to move.”

  “Got something else, too!” Rafael’s eyes were glittering. He held up a book with a red cover: Professor Erskine’s research book. “I’ll teach him to mess with our heads!” he whispered. “And look, I got one of his maps as well!”

  Ben gave him a thumbs-up. “Now come on!”

  The moon was disappearing from view as they made their way along the track, its glow fading as the sky turned from black to ashy grey.

  First priority, thought Ben: put as many miles between us and the camp as possible. Secondly: head off on the compass bearing.

  When they seemed a safe distance he twisted on his head torch, and immediately insects swarmed towards the beam.

  “Which way?” asked Yara, and he peered at the compass dial. Ben pointed a finger and she raised the machete, veering away from the track, making deft cuts through the tangled vegetation.

  They pushed on, the brightening dawn streaking through the canopy and on to the forest floor. Ben paused to check the compass. How long will we have to follow this bearing? He took a turn with the machete. How long before the professor and Luis come after us? He felt his head glazed with sweat, but he still shivered.

  �
��Five-minute rest, Ben?” called Yara. “I think Raffie has blisters.”

  They crouched in a pocket of daylight, sharing sips from the water canteen, Ben listening out for any sounds of their being followed, but hearing none.

  Rafael took out Professor Erskine’s thick research book and waggled it. “Maybe this will tell us what that cheat is up to!”

  Ben flipped the book open.

  On the first pages was a list of symbols: hieroglyphs, with notes about their meanings. He turned more pages. There were sketches and notes, all with sources and dates, some spanning right back.

  “There’s years of research there,” Rafael grinned. “He’ll be furious when he finds out we’ve taken it!” he added with relish.

  “The jaguar,” Ben read out, “is revered as the most powerful of all the jungle creatures… He aids communication between the living and the dead. Of all the spirits, the most powerful is that of the jaguar.

  “To clothe oneself as the jaguar,” Ben continued, “is to become the jaguar… All fabled rulers of El Dorado covered themselves in the fur of a jaguar.”

  “What?” exclaimed Rafael. “So Professor Erskine sees himself as some kind of ruler, do you think? Is that why he wants to dress up in a jaguar skin?”

  Yara gave a quick nod. “And Ben,” she said excitedly. “You said he was talking about a mask with Luis! Do you remember the inscription in the bat cave?”

  “He who wears the mask, wears the power of El Dorado,” recited Ben. For some reason, the words still sent cold ripples along his spine.

  “Is there anything about a mask in the book?” urged Rafael.

  Ben flicked through the pages, scanning them. “Here,” he said, after a while of searching. “Listen to this! Without his face, the golden king is nothing…’

  “The golden king!” interrupted Yara. “I told you that our legend speaks of such a king – it is he who you must meet at the final trial Ben!”

  “Wait!” said Ben. “Listen to the rest – there’s stuff about the mask!” He rapidly carried on reading. “The golden king was the god of the Ancients. In El Dorado a great temple was built to him. In a chamber at its very heart was placed his statue… Ben took a breath. “Now, here’s the bit…” His throat went dry as he read on. “Legend says that when the MASK is replaced on the face of the golden king, his power will be restored, and he will welcome all lost spirits into the sanctuary of his city.”