"Be careful," she said, and gave him a hug. "And please hurry." She ducked into the fireplace.
"Don't do anything stupid," Shannon added, and followed her.
Indy crossed the room, and started to lift one of the stones. But then he put it back down. He knew Powell could walk in at any time, but he also realized blocking the hole wouldn't do any good unless he hid their tracks, and created a diversion.
He crawled back through the hole, and crushed the crumbs of concrete with his boot heel, then spread them across the floor as best he could. Next, he snuffed out the remaining candles, dimming the light in the room. He moved over to the door through which Shannon had entered, and pulled the knife out of his jacket pocket. He gouged at the wood around the lock, chipping away one chunk after another.
Hopefully, Powell would see the splintered wood around the iock and think they had somehow gotten out, and were hiding inside the convent. He and his cohorts would search the interior, while they escaped through the chimney. Indy was counting on Powell to react quickly and not pause to think out what he was seeing. Eventually, when Powell couldn't find them, he would reassess the situation and realize that, if they had broken out of the room, they would have chosen the other door, the one leading outside. Then he would probably check the wall and find the loose stones, but by that time they'd have found their way to the ground, and escaped.
Suddenly, Indy froze as he heard a key turning in the lock just inches from his hand. He was caught off guard. There was no time to flee. He backed against the wall, and held up the knife, ready to defend himself. The knob turned, and the door creaked open several inches. He drew in his breath, squeezing the knife.
Then he heard Powell's voice. "I didn't say to open it yet. Wait until their food trays get here."
The door slammed shut, and Indy literally dived through the hole. Quickly, he hefted the stone from the lower part of the wall, and worked it into place. Then he picked up the other one, and pushed it end-first into the opening. Finally, he turned it and shoved until it fit firmly into place.
The darkness closed tightly around him. He patted his pockets, then snapped his fingers. He had a candle, but no matches. He crossed the dark room, guessing at the location of the fireplace. But the distance was shorter than he'd estimated and he bumped his nose against the wall. He cursed under his breath, then moved to his left feeling the wall as he went. After three steps, his hand touched the edge of the fireplace.
He crawled into the hearth, and stood up inside the chimney. A soft flickering light emanated from the wall several feet over his head. They must have left him a candle. Convenient, he thought. His hand found one of the iron rungs, his foot another, and he started climbing. As he neared the light, he saw that it was set back from the wall, and realized there must be a hole. Then he heard murmurs.
The hole in the chimney wall opened into another room. It was narrow and confining, and a few feet inside it Deirdre and Shannon were huddled together, examining something on the floor.
Indy stared in astonishment. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Look," Deirdre said, her voice bubbling with excitement. "This is it, the gold scroll."
"What?" He climbed through the opening, and Shannon moved aside. In the candlelight, resting on a purple velvet cloth, was the scroll. Deirdre had partially unrolled it, and engraved on the dull yellow metal were row after row of handwritten script.
"It was lying right here, wrapped in this cloth," Deirdre said.
Indy crawled closer and touched the scroll as if he didn't actually believe what he was seeing. "It looks in really good condition."
"I know," Deirdre said. "I think we can unroll it the whole way without it breaking or cracking. Can you read it?"
"It's Old English, from the fifth or sixth century, I'd say." And he could read it. It was one of the skills his father had taught him, and his abilities to decipher the language was one of the reasons his father had encouraged him to pursue linguistics as a career.
"I say we get out of here, and look at it later," Shannon said.
"No, let's find out what it says first," Deirdre countered.
Indy wasn't sure what to do. He wanted to know what it said as much as Deirdre, but he knew that Shannon was right, too.
"Jack, why don't you go up and see if you can find the trapdoor, and find a way to get down off the roof. We'll be up in a few minutes."
"So I'm the scout. Is that it? Remind me never to go up a chimney with a couple of scholars again." Shannon crawled out the hole and onto the ladder. He peered back at them. "Don't take all day with that thing."
Even before Shannon was out of sight they were unrolling the scroll. After several more inches were revealed, Indy started reading as Deirdre gazed over his shoulder. "It's about Merlin," he muttered. "It's in first person."
"My God, he wrote it," Deirdre said in a hushed voice.
"Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense." He tapped the scroll. "Look at the year he gives as his birthdate. That's not possible."
"I can't read it. What's it say?"
"That he was born more than four thousand years ago." Indy laughed. "Very early Old English, and the date's based on the Julian calendar, which didn't come into use until 46 B.C. " He smiled and shook his head. "Well, they said Merlin was a trickster. C'mon. Let's go."
Deirdre shook her head. "Wait. I don't understand."
"It was probably written more like four hundred years ago, not four thousand." His tone of voice reflected his disappointment. "In other words, just another Merlin legend with a fancy gold touch. Probably the monk, Mathers, wrote it himself. He no doubt knew enough Old English to fake it."
"But why?"
"He was probably bored being stuck in Whithorn, and thought it was a good joke to put the mighty pagan enchanter's words to rest in a monastery."
"Read it, anyway. Please?"
"All right." Indy touched its clinquant surface. He spoke slowly, translating the script to modern English. "'As a young man I was a student of necromancy, an initiate in the wyrding ways. One day while traveling in distant mountains across the waters a fiery black stone fell in my path. That day my life was changed for all time. When the stone cooled and I picked it up, I could hear the gods speaking to me.
"'They said that I was to build a great circular temple using rocks from the very mountain range upon which the fiery stone had fallen, and they told me where I was to build the temple. But I said that it was impossible to do such a thing since the place was so far away. They answered that with the stone all things were possible. The gods needed the temple as a doorway allowing them to enter our world. I built the temple and when I saw how the gods cavorted about when they arrived, I called it Dance of the Giants. Finally, at the gods' request I buried the sacred stone in the center of the temple.
"'Only then did I discover the powers that I had gained from the sacred stone, powers beyond belief. I was a god, immortal, and the stone allowed me to pass through time as if I were walking through a gate. I lived a life in Greece, and at my bidding, a messenger was sent to Britain, and he returned with the sacred stone. I placed it at Delphi and it was called the Omphalos.'"
Indy stopped reading to unravel more of the scroll. "'I moved again through the gate of time to the distant future in which I now exist as Merlin. I came here for a particular reason. This being an era when the powers of the old gods are waning. Fallen rocks are all that remain of Delphi and the Dance of Giants long ago lost its strength. Yet, I trusted that my powers were great enough so as to revive the old ways. But soon I saw that was not to be, for the Omphalos was now lost.
"'I spent my life as best I could. I guided three kings, and although my powers remain ample, they are much weakened with the loss of the sacred stone, and no longer am I immortal. Damned am I, to die in this time as the old gods take their last breaths. I am old and tired, and do not have long to remain. I now surrender myself to the place where no one will seek me, on the very hearth of the new religio
n. I will take my last breath soon on the day when the light dims at midday.'"
"There's still more," Deirdre said, and she unrolled the scroll to its last lines.
"'My final words are ones of hope, for my vision of future times remains unhindered. The Omphalos will return to the Dance of Giants when once again the light dims at midday as the stars align for Apollo's festival. He who reads these words, remember what you know of the Omphalos, for it will remain true to its nature. That is all you need to know.'"
Indy looked up, speechless.
"What does that ending mean?" Deirdre asked.
"It's sort of cryptic, isn't it?"
"You still think the monk wrote it?"
Indy gathered his wits. "Well, it would explain why it was never sent to the Vatican." Even as Indy said it, he knew that the explanation didn't ring true, and Deirdre was quick to say it was too easy to just reduce the whole thing to a joke.
"You're overlooking what it says. It's about the Omphalos, Indy."
"Well, it is fascinating that it links Stonehenge and Delphi."
"And who would've guessed that Merlin and Apollo are the same?"
Indy laughed. "You can't believe everything you read, Deirdre, especially if it's about Merlin. But Merlin's not the Apollo stand-in we need to concern ourselves about right now."
"Are you saying that Powell thinks he's Apollo?"
Indy carefully rolled up the scroll. "Well, their names are close. I'm sure he'd be happy to accept the role of a god."
21
Wicker Walls
"Did you hear that?" Deirdre said.
Indy wrapped the purple cloth around the scroll as he finished rolling it up. "What was it?"
"Voices. They must have found the loose stones."
"Let's get out of here. Fast."
Deirdre crawled toward the opening in the chimney. "Where's Jack?"
"Waiting for us on the roof. I hope." He tucked the scroll into his jacket pocket, and watched as Deirdre stepped out onto an iron rung and started climbing. She reached the top and Indy was right behind her.
"I can't see anything," she whispered. Then she moved aside as he climbed around her, sharing the same rungs.
"Let's see here," he said. His arm was wrapped around her waist, and he could hear her breathing. Her hair fell against his cheek, and memories of their recent lovemaking came to mind again. He nuzzled her neck.
"Indy, this is not the time or place. Can't you see? It just ends."
"And I thought it was just beginning." He pecked at her cheek.
"Look at it, will you?"
He pressed his hands to the roof, felt the beams. "There's gotta be a way out. Shannon didn't just disappear."
"Maybe if I light the candle..." But she didn't finish. The voices from below were louder, and a soft glow of light suddenly filtered into the fireplace. Powell's men had moved into the room and Indy realized the seriousness of their predicament. They needed to find a way out.
"Hey, are you two through playing around?" Shannon hissed from somewhere to Indy's left.
Indy patted the wall of the chimney and felt an opening just below the ceiling. Then suddenly light exploded in his face as Shannon lit a match in front of his nose. Indy blinked his eyes rapidly, adjusting to the light, and saw Shannon in a crawl space a few feet away.
"Go ahead," he whispered to Deirdre. "Quick."
Just as she climbed into the crawl space, a lantern was shoved into the hearth. Indy quickly wriggled through the opening after her. "Don't say a word," he whispered.
They crawled through into the darkness, but after ten yards or so the tunnel broke into two channels and Shannon took the one which seemed to lead toward the interior of the building.
"Jack, did you find a way out?" Indy called after him.
Shannon stopped. There was just room enough to sit up. "I tried the other way. It divided into two arms and both of them were dead ends."
"There's got to be a way out, somewhere," Deirdre said.
Unless it's been blocked, Indy thought. "Let's see where this goes."
"You can go first," Shannon said. "I've done my time as scout."
Indy heard voices, and knew Powell's men were climbing the chimney. He edged past Shannon and clambered forward into the darkness. The crawl space was stuffy and smelled of rotted wood. He stopped as he saw another passage opening to the right, and a faint light leaking from somewhere in the distance.
He waited for the others to catch up. "Looks good this way. I see light."
"Damn it, something just bit me," Shannon complained.
"Quiet, Jack. I can hear them back there," Deirdre said.
Indy felt something crawling on his neck and brushed it off. He moved ahead, but stopped and ran his hands over his arms. Ants. Swell. They were scampering over his fingers, hands, wrists and arms, and probably heading up his pant legs as well. They had to get out of here and Powell was no longer the only reason.
He heard guttural sounds, slaps, a screech cut short as he crawled forward, and knew that they were all under attack. The light gradually grew brighter. Then, he stopped as he saw that it was coming from below, not above. It was a knothole in the wood, and beyond it was another dead end.
"Indy, there're ants everywhere," Deirdre said in a harsh whisper. "They're all over me. They're biting."
He looked back and in the light saw Deirdre frantically running her hands over her arms and legs. Now he could see hordes of fire ants crawling everywhere. Shannon twitched and rubbed and cursed. "Don't stop now, damn it. We're sitting in a goddamn ants' nest."
"I can't go any further. We've gotta go back."
"We can't go back now," Deirdre said.
The ants were feasting on his legs; he slapped at his pants legs.
Desperately, Indy squatted and pushed his hands against the roof, hoping that a trapdoor was right above him. He drove his legs downward, thrust his hands and shoulder into the roof. It didn't budge. Then something else did. The rotted plank under his feet sagged, then ripped through the plaster on the ceiling of the room below.
"What the hell!" Shannon yelled.
Light flooded over Indy; he tottered, balancing by his toes and fingertips. But gravity prevailed. His feet slid off the plank and he plunged downward. His chest slapped against the rotted board; he slid over the end of it. At the last moment, his hands grasped the sides of the board. It bent under his weight and he dangled.
Above him, he saw Shannon's feet and Deirdre's legs. Below him, the late afternoon sun shone brightly through a window. He saw a room with two single beds, and standing in the doorway was Adrian Powell. He heard something strike the floor and knew it was the gold scroll. The room swirled; ants bit his fingers and arms, legs and ankles. He heard a creaking as the board bent further.
"Indy, we're going to fall," Deirdre cried out. Then, suddenly it snapped, and the floor jumped up at him.
"Damn train. One stop after another. No one told me I'd arrive in the middle of the night. Slowest mode of transportation since walking. So whylome wont."
Leeland Milford scratched his bald pate, and his thick, white mustache twitched as he surveyed the Amesbury station. He wore his long dark overcoat and carried a black leather case with a lock on it. He was on a mission of sorts, and this time he wasn't going to forget about it. He'd even written himself a note just in case.
"A ride, sir?"
Milford stopped and looked around, confused by the voice, then turned and saw it was a boy barely five feet tall. "You talking to me, young man?"
"Yes, sir. I'm wondering if you would like a ride in my carriage."
"A ride? Do ye tyke me a fool, young master? It is known well by yours truly that no place in this tiny village cannot be found in five minutes or less on foot. So whylome wont. Do ye hear me right?"
"I think so. Could I carry your bag for you."
"Not on your life. Now move on." Milford walked off at a determined pace, but after he'd passed through the station he noti
ced that the youngster was following him. "I'll show the little urchin," he muttered. He spun on his heels, pointed a finger, and bellowed, "'I knowe whome thou sekest, for thou sekest Merlyn; therefore seke no ferther, for I am he.'"
The boy backed away. "You must be here for the festival."
"Not likely. Not likely." Milford headed down the sidewalk. He hoped he didn't have to check too many lodgings before he found Indy. Of course, there certainly couldn't be many here to check.
"You missed the eclipse."
The rascal was still with him. Milford stopped, turned, and considered the towhead a moment. "Maybe I spoke too soon. Merlin, after all, was known from time to time to disguise himself 'lyke a chylde of fourtene yere of ayge in a beggars aray.'"
"My name's Randy."
"Well, Master Randy, I don't take trains to eclipses or festivals. You can be sure of that. But you might tell me if you've seen a man who... Oh, never mind."
"Are you looking for a man who carries a whip?"
"Good God, no. I've never heard such a thing. The man does wear a leather jacket, though, and a fedora."
"He does? That's Indy. I know where you can find him."
"You do?"
"Yes, and we can go there in my carriage."
"Why didn't you say so in the first place? Let's go."
When Deirdre awakened, she moaned, grimacing in pain. Her body ached. She sat up, rubbed her head, and felt a lump behind her right ear. She was staring at a sturdy wicker pole in front of her and wondered what it was. Then she remembered what had happened, and saw she was surrounded by wicker poles. She was in a cage, a wicker cage.
"How are you feeling, Deirdre?"
Adrian's voice sounded strange, distant. She couldn't tell where it was coming from, and she couldn't see him. She looked around; she was in a large empty hall with a high ceiling. There were tall, stained glass windows on the walls, but no light shone through them.
Then she saw him to her right. He'd been there all the time, staring at her from across the room. He wore a robe and was flanked by two men in similar garb. Their cowls were pulled over their heads. Adrian started toward her, and the other men followed.
Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants Page 18