The Jaguar Trials

by Ruth Eastham

  “Geysers are superheated water under pressure,” Raffie stuttered, still trembling after their near miss. “They are instant death for anyone who gets in their way.”

  “Should be a doddle to deal with, then,” said Ben.

  So how would they ever pass? One foot wrong on the fragile ground and they’d plunge into scalding water, and even if they found stable ground, a geyser could erupt under them at any second.

  For a moment, the situation felt hopeless. But there must be a way to pass the trial, Ben’s inner voice reasoned, however impossible it seemed.

  “How are we ever going to reach the top, Ben?” Yara asked. “Make a dash for it when the geysers have stopped?”

  As they stood there thinking, the wailing started again, and they watched as the succession of geysers performed their deadly show.

  “Not enough time, Yara,” shouted Ben over the roar.

  Part-way through the spectacle, Ben felt Rafael grip his arm. He jiggled Ben’s elbow up and down, face looking like he was bursting to tell Ben something. “They can be timed!” he mouthed.

  “What do you mean?” yelled Ben as another geyser burst into life.

  “Like Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park!” said Rafael excitedly. “I went there once. You can set your clock by that geyser!”

  Ben nodded as he began to understand what Rafael was getting at.

  “Remember the games of chess we played on the boat?” Rafael went on. “You make a move, then the geysers make a move.” Rafael pulled up his sleeve to look at his watch. “This trial’s all about strategy, surely!”

  Ben got it! They’d be able to time the jets; predict when the next one was coming. “Raffie – you’re a genius!”

  “Then there’s the problem of the unstable ground…” Rafael paced about a bit and then stopped and clicked his fingers. “That’s linked to the colours of the crystals – must be!

  “Is it?” asked Yara.

  Rafael hopped about, his eyes bright. “Those reddish patches, we know we have to stay off those, but the parts with any kind of gold specks, I think they contain pyrite – fool’s gold, people used to call it – and those deposits are thick and can take our weight.”

  “Awesome!” exclaimed Yara. She scanned up the terraces. “Some of the gold areas are pretty far apart, though,” in a much less certain tone.

  Ben squinted up the terraces, tracking the safe, gold- specked patches between where they were standing and that strange-looking tree at the top. There were several; but it wasn’t exactly going to be easy. He gulped. In places they’d need to take a good few staggering jumps and break a few Olympic records on the way.

  Unless…

  Ben looked up at the creepers strung overhead between the rock towers, then pulled at a stem and it came down like a rope. He tugged the vine to see if it was strong enough, then eased himself up so that his whole weight was suspended. It swayed and creaked unnervingly – but it held.

  “OK.” Ben let go of the creeper and wiped his forehead. “Do you see what we have to do?”

  “I do!” said Yara. “Let me practise!” She took a running leap on to the creeper, swinging several metres over an unstable area before landing deftly on firm ground.

  “What? We need to use the creepers to get across the gaps?” Raffie looked petrified, but then he nodded. “I don’t usually do swinging, but … I’ll try.”

  Ben saw Yara give Rafael’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He scrutinized his watch. “Right, now we need to memorize the geyser pattern.”

  Rafael flipped open his notebook and chewed the end of his pen and they waited for the geysers to start again. The hissing rose to a wail, then crescendoed into a howl.

  “Here it comes!” Ben yelled. “Concentrate, everyone!”

  The first geyser sprang into action and then the other jets performed. When the spectacle was over, the three of them used Raffie’s scribbles to fine-tune the sequence.

  “Five seconds here, then pause for three, then swing here, then jump here…” Rafael made sweeping arrows across the page, as if he was a coach going through the moves in a football game. “Got it?”

  “I’ll go first,” said Ben, wriggling out of his rucksack and hiding it behind a rock. He couldn’t afford that extra weight, but he didn’t want it to be obvious that they’d been this way. “I’ll test out getting across and pull the creepers into position. You two can come across on another sequence and…” He stopped speaking.

  A faint, high-pitched sound was coming from somewhere behind them – and it wasn’t the geysers.

  Yara spun round. “There is only one person who whistles like that!” she said.

  “The Professor and Luis have tracked us down!” cried Rafael, his face pale. “We can’t have more than few minutes until they get here!”

  “We have to go across now. All of us!” Ben took one last glance at the notes, then snapped the book shut and shoved it back at Rafael. “Follow my moves!” He just had to hope he had the pattern memorized correctly.

  Already the hissing of a geyser had started up again, getting louder by the second.

  “Keep the timings precise,” Ben muttered to himself. “Wait, then move fast.”

  His friends were depending on him to lead them safely across.

  The ground vibrated under Ben’s feet as the pressure started to build. There’d be only one chance, he told himself. Only time for one crossing before Luis and the professor arrived – if that.

  The ominous wailing below ground turned into a howl.

  “Go!” Heart lurching, Ben darted forward, leaping from one patch of gold-specked ground to the next, crunching down on the solid layers of pyrite.

  “Five seconds, three steps right…” He shouted instructions to himself as he went. “Pause for three!”

  He stopped for a moment on the stable ground, timing his next move, then sprang to catch hold of a creeper to give him momentum.

  He heard the gush of the first geyser behind him, felt the rush of steamy heat in the air as he dodged between the rock pillars, glancing back to check his friends were close behind.

  The soles of his boots went tacky with the heat from the ground; sweat ran down his face. Know when to move; know when to pause. But it was hard to be patient when he thought about the chambers of superheated water right under him. “Now!” he yelled. “Now!”

  They were more than halfway across when it happened.

  Ben was holding on to a rock tower, timing his next move, when he heard a scream. He twisted to look behind him and gave a cry of shock: both Rafael and Yara were stranded, the terrace collapsing in a wide radius round them, water bubbling visciously on all sides.

  And there was less than a minute until the next geyser blew.

  Had a creeper broken? Had a leap been mistimed? No time to think about that now, Ben told himself – help them!

  There were no vines within reach, and in any case the gap was too wide to swing across without a massive run-up and he had no space for that.

  With maybe only half a minute left, only one thing came into his head.

  Ben got behind the rock tower and rammed it with his shoulder as hard as he could. He ignored the jarring pain and crashed against it again. He let his torso smack into the rock a third time, and felt the tower give a little.

  He kicked the base viciously with his foot, then battered against it again, then again. He felt the ground quake under him with the building pressure; saw steam fizz along the geyser fissure as the seconds ticked down.

  There was a loud snap and the tower teetered. With a shout, Ben slammed forward with his whole body.

  The tower toppled, crashing down on the edge of Yara and Rafael’s shrinking island.

  “Come on!” Ben yelled, and Yara pulled Rafael with her across the bridge. Behind them the geyser swept up in a cascade of scorching droplets.

  Go. Go. Go!

  Ben saw them get safely across and then took a breath and was off again. But the delay now mean
t the timings had got messed up.

  His jumps became more instinctive; looking for those gold patches; grabbing up at creepers; yelling to Raffie and Yara over the terrible din of the geysers. The other side loomed close, the strange tree at the top of the terraces alluringly near. A strange confidence surged through his body, similar to what he’d felt when he’d climbed like a bat; dived like a bird. He made a series of wild, bounding strides, pulling the others along with him.

  With a final graceful leap he sprang … and landed, feeling the crust breaking under his back heel and a spray of scalding water. He spun round to wrench his friends towards him, and the three of them collapsed in a heap behind the tree.

  It was a while before any of them could speak.

  “Thanks, Ben,” Yara said at last.

  Raffie’s chest was heaving like a piston. “Can you see anyone coming?” he rasped. “They won’t be able to follow us across the geysers, will they?”

  Ben peered out from behind the trunk and down the terraces. There might have been a movement – it was difficult to tell through the thick steam. “Let’s not stick around to find out.”

  As Ben stood, he realized with a start that the tree they were behind was not a tree at all. What he’d thought were branches were actually twisting limbs of rock; its leaves were really diamond-shaped crystals that glinted in a myriad of colours. What had seemed to be the bark was rainbow swirls of minerals.

  It was an ancient-looking rock formation, and when Ben looked closely he could make out a frame of hieroglyphs, like the ones he’d seen carved in the bat cave and round the hole where he’d found the bird. When he pressed firmly at the surface inside the frame, the deposits fell away to reveal an exactly square opening.

  He heard Rafael gasp.

  “Awesome!” exclaimed Yara.

  Ben reached in and took out an alabaster box, identical to the first two, and held it out to Yara. “Go on,” he said, holding it out to her. “Your turn.”

  Yara gave a smile. “Any guesses what’s inside?” She slipped the catch and lifted the lid.

  “A monkey!” she said in delight, reaching forward to stroke its gleaming surface.

  Ben nodded. The Trial of the Howling Heights had needed speed, agility, cleverness, daring, balance – what better than a monkey!

  He took the icon out of the box and turned it over, and his friends crowded in close to see…

  But the back surface was blank; completely smooth.

  “But we don’t need a clue this time, do we?” said Rafael. He pointed ahead of them, and Ben saw how the top terrace they were on continued, narrowing to pass between high cliffs, and becoming a rocky gully which climbed out of sight. It was the only way forward. And the ground through the narrow valley – he let out a long breath – it was paved with wide, smooth stones.

  “It’s a road!” Ben cried. “Someone built a road through here! Come on!”

  They hurried up the slender canyon, following the ancient road. As they got higher, the cliffs became dotted with sparkling crystals.

  “We must be getting close now, Ben, don’t you think?” He heard the anticipation in Rafael’s voice, together with a wobble of fear.

  “I am sure we must be,” said Yara.

  Up they climbed, but as time passed there was still no sight of the end. It was thirsty work without water, and they’d eaten their last biscuit long before. Storm clouds gathered, and a strange, cold wind started blowing that made Ben shiver.

  Rafael pressed close alongside, looking worried. “What will the next trial involve, Ben, do you think? Will the guardians of the dead really be dead?”

  On they went, stumbling over the loose rocks of the path, sending scatterings of stones bouncing back down the slope. Their pace was definitely getting slower. Now above them was a constant mass of swirling clouds, with only brief glimpses of the sun.

  Every time Ben thought they were about to reach the top, they crested the brow and another, even steeper slope stretched up ahead of them. And it was while they were resting on one of these ridges that Yara suddenly gave a frightened cry, pointing back the way they’d come.

  Ben followed her outstretched finger to see two figures below them, moving fast up through the gully.

  The professor. Luis.

  “But how did they get past the geysers?” Rafael looked stunned.

  Ben scrambled to his feet. How had they?

  “The crystals we crushed as we went across!” exclaimed Yara. “They must have seen where we stepped and timed the geysers like we did, and followed our footsteps—”

  There was an ear-splitting crack – a gun being fired into the air.

  “Come on!” shouted Ben. His mind went into overdrive as they rushed on.

  Can we hide? There were no hiding places, only the smooth, sheer walls of the gully.

  Can we set a trap? Ben scoured the ground for some kind of weapon; even scooped up a jagged rock from the ground. But then he let it fall. What use would a stone be against a gun?

  They pushed the pace still further. Ben’s throat was sore when he swallowed. He stumbled, nearly spraining his ankle on the uneven roadway. Luis’s creepy whistling echoed up the canyon walls, alternating between getting louder, and then fainter.

  They reached a twist in the gully, finding a trickle of water coming down the rock.

  “Got to drink!” said Ben, and they took brief turns, Ben lapping fast like an animal, feeling energy filter through his aching muscles.

  The ground was different here, he noticed, as he drew away from the rock wiping his mouth. A soft, reddish mud, with a metallic salty smell, like the tang of blood.

  “Lots of iron round here,” Raffie muttered, glancing nervously behind them. “Can we go now please?”

  They were about to leave, but Yara suddenly pointed at the compass round Ben’s neck. “Look what it is doing!” she cried.

  Ben watched the needle spin, round and round, refusing to settle…

  But before he could think what to make of it, there was the deafening crack and crystals shattered and ricocheted off the rock right by them.

  Ben instinctively dived for the ground, flattening himself against it, and saw Yara and Raffie do the same. Another shot. A bullet whizzed over their heads.

  “Up! Go!” Keeping low, they stumbled towards where the gully turned out of sight, Ben’s thoughts going hyper as he braced himself for more shots. Get out of range!

  They pushed on, rounding the bend… And there was something up ahead of them, catching the light – something metallic?

  Ben came to an abrupt stop and bent to catch his breath. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, hardly believing what he was seeing.

  The shattered wings. The mangled propeller.

  In front of them was a wreck: the twisted, rusted fuselage of a crashed plane, pinned between the two sides of the gully walls, completely blocking their way.

  And pressed against the smashed front window of the cockpit was a human skull.

  A skull. Jaw hanging open. Shattered bone.

  Ben took a shaky step forward, trying to take in the scene. As he approached the smashed plane window he saw that there was another body, a second sun-bleached skeleton, twisted over the plane’s controls.

  “They are Professor Erskine’s parents.” Yara was by his shoulder, speaking in a shocked whisper. “They must be, must they not?”

  Rafael couldn’t take his eyes off the bones. “We’ve got to get past,” he said, gripping the sides of his glasses. “Before they come with the gun.”

  Ben looked back at the plane, seeing the way its underbelly and smashed wing stubs lay like a barrier before them. There was no way round. No way under. He stared through the mangled hole where the cabin door had once been, seeing a slit of daylight showing beyond. “Let me check if there’s a way through.” He quickly approached the doorway and, wary of the jagged metal edges, levered himself up and inside, into the chaos of metal and wires and strewn objects.

  “Hurry!
” Yara urged.

  And now Ben saw the tear in the other side of the fuselage. Their escape route. “We can get through!” he shouted. “Climb up!”

  As he turned back to help the others he tripped on something and nearly went sprawling. It was some kind of half-decayed travel bag, the old-fashioned kind. His eye caught a brass nameplate on it and, seized with curiosity, he stooped to wipe away its film of grime.

  PETER…

  Ben peered at the tarnished metal.

  PETER and PENELOPE ERSKINE

  Ben let out a breath. So that confirmed it. Yara was right. These were Professor Erskine’s explorer parents. Erskine had been here as a boy. The stories about him were all true.

  In that claustrophobic, derelict space, Ben had a sudden image of Erskine as a tiny boy, the only survivor of the crash, alone in this remote place with the bodies of the two dead parents he’d seen killed. What might that do to someone, to a child – to their head? Suddenly he felt sorry for the professor. He knew himself what it was like to lose a mum, a dad…

  “Hurry up! Come inside!” Ben called again to the others. What was taking them so long?

  There was a noise behind him, breathing, and he turned. “You were right, Yara—”

  But it wasn’t Yara who appeared through the doorway. Nor Raffie.

  It was Professor Erskine.

  One look at Erskine’s face was all it took. In an instant Ben’s pity evaporated.

  “Where is the gold you stole from me?”

  Ben instinctively slipped a hand into the pocket where the three icons were nestled inside the pouch with the stones, closing his fingers round it protectively.

  Erskine was a sight. He was no longer the smart and tidy explorer Ben had first met. His hair was ruffled and his clothes were streaked with dirt.

  Behind he saw Luis, his rifle raised, his gaunt features difficult to read.

  Erskine reached in through the doorway and gripped the collar of Ben’s shirt, pulling him out and down to the ground.

  “I didn’t steal anything!” Ben gripped the icons inside a fist. “You’re the thief!”

  “And a liar!” shouted Raffie bravely.