Shannon grabbed Indy's wrist and pulled him onto the running board. "You made it," Deirdre yelled as the carriage picked up speed.
Indy tried to catch his breath as he clung to the carriage door. "We all did."
"You gave them something to think about with that whip, lad," Williams shouted gleefully.
"They must think those were the meanest lambs they'd ever seen," Shannon laughed.
Indy looked up. Something was wrong. Then he saw the outline of the massive trilithons coming into view. The carriage was making a wide turn. It was heading back.
"What are you doing?" Indy yelled.
"I can't help it," Randy shrieked. "I can't control them."
The horses charged across the plain, rushing toward Stonehenge, galloping so fast that Indy almost lost his hold on the carriage door. He pulled himself up the side of the carriage, crawled over the roof, and grasped the back of Randy's wooden seat. The kid was bent low, reaching for the reins, which had fallen from his hands.
Indy climbed over the seat, and gripped Randy by the shoulder. "Move back. I'll get it."
The kid scrambled out of the way and Indy leaned over as far as he could. But he still couldn't reach the reins; they dangled over the back of one of the horses. There was only one thing to do. He jumped head-first, landing on one horse's back. He grabbed the reins and pulled. But the horses seemed to go even faster.
He needed a better position. Holding the reins for balance, he stood up, placing a foot on the rear of each horse. Then he leaned back, and yanked hard on the reins. The horses suddenly reared up, catapulting Indy from his perch. He hit the dirt and rolled.
Indy must have lost consciousness for a few seconds because when he opened his eyes he saw the carriage lying on its side, and he heard calls for help. He raised himself up on his hands and knees. Just then his fedora, which he'd left behind in the carriage when they'd arrived, dropped in front of him. Next to it were feet. Legs.
"Don't forget your hat, Jones."
He looked up to see Powell, now garbed in a robe. He pointed a gun, and behind him the stone monument loomed in the night, silhouetted by the orange glow of the bonfire.
"Did you enjoy your ride, Professor? The horses heard my call, and came at my command. I have a very special affinity with animals, as you can see." He laughed. "Maybe it comes from owning a pet store."
Powell motioned the gun toward the upended carriage. "Now gather up the rest of the little lambs. There's more fun ahead."
Suddenly, Randy limped out of the darkness, and behind him was Narrow Eyes. "Caught this little runt trying to crawl away."
As Indy walked over to the carriage, he felt a pain in his side, and touched his hand to his bulging jacket pocket. He'd landed on the Omphalos and bruised a rib. But he was relieved it was still there. The relic was his last hope.
The horns and drums had stopped, and the druids were swaying and chanting again. Axis mundi est chorea gigantum. Over and over like the rumble of a car being started.
Powell led Deirdre into the horseshoe formation of trilithons at the center of Stonehenge, while Indy and the others were held at gunpoint to one side of the horseshoe, a short distance from the bonfire.
Powell held up a hand, and the chanting faded and died. "Now, finally the most sacred of our ceremonies will begin," Powell told the crowd. A druid moved forward with a small oak and planted it in a hole next to Powell. Indy guessed it was the spot where the fake Omphalos had been buried.
Another druid approached and handed Powell a long knife with an ornately carved handle. "Don't let him do this," Deirdre yelled.
"Listen to the lamb bleating before its sacrificial death," Powell said.
"It's a woman; open your eyes," Indy yelled.
Narrow Eyes jabbed his gun into Indy's back. "No one can hear you. They don't believe lambs talk so they don't hear anything."
Somebody out there had to see them, and hear them, Indy thought, frantic now. No one could control that many minds. But there was no time to wonder what the crowd was seeing. As the ground around the oak tree was patted flat with a shovel and the druid moved away, Powell raised the knife to Deirdre's throat.
Indy unzipped his jacket pocket. "Powell, you don't have the Omphalos. It's right here. Yours is a fake."
He pulled it from his pocket and raised it above his head. "Stop, Jones," Narrow Eyes ordered. "I'll shoot." But Indy stepped toward Powell, ignoring the threat. He heard murmurs from the crowd. "Who is this man? Where did he come from? Is he one of us?"
Now they saw him. He was sure of it, and Narrow Eyes didn't pull the trigger.
Powell was caught off guard. He lowered the knife as Indy stopped several feet from him. Indy didn't know what to do next, but suddenly, as he pressed the Omphalos to his chest, it didn't matter any longer.
He saw an eagle. His eagle. He knew this eagle. It was part of his past. It was his protector. He'd last seen it when he'd held the Omphalos at Delphi. Now it was here, soaring above the ruins, etching a circle above the trilithons.
"What am I going to do?" Indy asked, not knowing whether the words were spoken or thought.
The eagle completed its first circle, and suddenly Indy saw the stones illuminated in an ethereal light that seemed to emanate from within them. They were different now. The sarsen circle and the rest of the temple was completed. Where the slaughter stone had been a moment ago was another trilithon.
Indy was so fascinated with what he saw that he didn't realize at first that a tall man in a gray cloak stood to his left. The man was gazing off and an owl was perched on his right shoulder. Indy could see part of a long white beard, but nothing else.
The man spoke: "Ask."
"Ask what?"
"Try again."
"Where am I?"
"You know."
"But it doesn't look the same."
"Seventy windows look out to the universe and the universal mind."
"Where is everyone?"
"They are here."
Indy peered at the man, trying to get a better view. "Who are you?"
"You've already read my tale, false as you believe it to be. I have many names, and in not too many years will be reborn again in lore as Gandalf. I like that name." The man turned slightly, and Indy saw a pale, wrinkled face, a long nose, and a hint of crinkled smile. "But don't waste time. Ask what you don't already know."
Indy didn't know what to ask. "Why is it called Dance of the Giants?"
"The dancing gods once charged the stones, which are great batteries of power and healing."
"Can the power be used for evil?"
"The energy is neither good nor evil. It is."
"Will Adrian Powell become prime minister?"
"I say one from the orders will become prime minister. But you can stop Powell."
"How?"
"By giving to him what he wants."
He felt a tug and looked down to see a pair of hands pulling on the Omphalos. Suddenly, he found himself in a tug-of-war with Powell for control of the relic, and everything was back as it was. The cloaked stranger was gone, and so was the eagle. But the words of the old enchanter were still in his mind. Indy let go and Powell clutched the Omphalos to his own chest. He seemed startled that Indy had given it up so easily. Then his expression changed. He looked stunned. His mouth opened; he took an unsteady step, then dropped to one knee.
Narrow Eyes moved forward to Powell and asked him if he was all right. Powell rose to his feet. His eyes bulged but he stared at Narrow Eyes as if he didn't recognize him or understand what he was saying.
"Now, the ceremony must be completed," he said in a monotone. He let go of the Omphalos with one hand and pulled the ceremonial knife from his robe. With a quick thrust, he stabbed Narrow Eyes in the stomach, then pulled out the knife and slashed upward to his collarbone. Narrow Eyes staggered back, blood spurting from his stomach and chest. He collapsed.
Indy snatched the Omphalos from Powell's grasp, and clutched it. He was about
to reach for Deirdre, but was stopped in his tracks. Again, he saw the eagle soaring above the ruins. It swept down and lit on Indy's shoulder, and he knew he was protected. The gray-cloaked figure stood next to him in the ruins, which were no longer ruins. The conjurer raised a hand as if motioning him to speak.
This time Indy didn't hesitate. "What's going on?"
The tall man laughed. "More than what you see."
"What did Powell see when he held the Omphalos?"
"The landscape of his own mind. A mind of great strength, but equally great greed, with little concern for others. Everything is collapsing around him, including the very sky above him. He has lost his vision."
"If not Powell, who is the druid who will be prime minister?"
"That's none of your concern. Don't worry about it. He will be a strong leader, but not much of a druid." He stroked the head of the owl on his shoulder. "Isn't that right, Churchill?"
Then he turned to Indy one last time. "Now look what's going on."
Suddenly, Indy felt a jolt, and saw that Powell had jerked the Omphalos from his hands again. He backed away from Indy, holding the Omphalos above his head. "I am invincible. My strength is beyond all measure. I control."
Then Indy saw Narrow Eyes behind Powell. He was on his feet, bloodied and tottering. Powell backed into him, and Narrow Eyes wrapped his arms around him and they swayed like two dancers.
"Let go of me," Powell shouted. "What monster has me?"
Then, with a final burst of strength, Narrow Eyes drove Powell forward and into the bonfire. Both men disappeared in the flames. The fire roared as if in approval.
Indy held Deirdre close to him, hardly believing what he'd seen. "It's over. All over."
But then suddenly Powell reeled into view at the edge of the blaze. His skin was blackened and in flames, but he still held the Omphalos. For an instant, Indy thought that Powell was going to lunge for them. But with a final piercing cry of terror, he collapsed back into the inferno.
25
Apollo's Arrow
A wisp of smoke curled from the ash-strewn debris where the bonfire had blazed. Deirdre watched in the early morning light as Indy and Shannon picked their way toward her. She'd wanted no part of their search. She wasn't going any closer to the gruesome remains. She'd experienced enough horror, and only wanted to sleep now. A long, deep sleep. She wanted to forget. That was all.
Indy was carrying a cloth bag, and from its shape it looked as if he'd been successful at recovering the Omphalos. "I guess you got it," she said.
"Yeah, it had sunk into his rib cage, and one end of it—"
She waved a hand. "Don't tell me about it. I don't want to know."
"There's something else we found, though, that you're going to want to know about," Shannon said.
"What?"
He held up a charred glob of yellow metal. "It's the gold scroll. What's left of it."
"Oh, no!"
"I'm afraid so," Indy said. "Powell must have had it in a pocket of his robe. It was a hot fire."
"It's still hot," Shannon said. "Look at this." He lifted up his foot; the bottom of his boot was smoking.
"Is it reparable?" she asked.
"The boot?"
"No, Jack, not your boot."
"The writing's all gone," Indy answered. "It's just a piece of gold now, a couple of ounces at least."
Shannon handed it to her. "Here, it's yours. You found it."
"What am I going to do with it?"
"You could throw a big wedding party and hire a jazz band and pay them real well. I just happen to have one in mind."
She laughed, and glanced at Indy, then looked away. After what she'd been through, she felt changed somehow, a different person, not at all like the one who had been excited about the prospect of returning to London and getting married. She felt uncertain; she needed time to think, to heal, to cleanse herself of the past.
Right now she needed sleep. Maybe after she was rested it would all work out as they'd planned. She looked at the remains of the gold scroll, and shrugged. "Well, I guess there's nothing more here for us. Can we leave now? I'm ready to drop."
Indy slipped his arm around Deirdre's shoulder. "So am I. Let's go."
"What about the fake Omphalos?" Shannon asked.
"Let's leave it," Indy said. "It's a nice symbolic gesture of the return of the Omphalos."
Shannon shrugged. "Don't suppose it would matter which of the two were planted there anyway, would it?"
Indy looked at Shannon, who had never held the Omphalos. "Naw, I suppose not."
They should have felt relieved and excited, looking to the future, but something had changed between him and Deirdre, shifted like the ground during an earthquake, Indy thought. They seemed like two different people. Yet, he knew that more than one person who had survived a life-threatening situation had felt an inexplicable letdown when the danger was over. The feeling would pass, he was sure, and they would come back together. At least, that's the way he hoped it would work.
He slipped his arm off of Deirdre's shoulder, and took one more look at the stone formations. He noticed that the bluestones, which formed a horseshoe within the five trilithons at the center of the ruins, were conical like the Omphalos. The cone and the parallelogram were the two shapes of stones considered most sacred by the ancient Greeks, and both shapes were present at Stonehenge. But Stonehenge was conceived and built even before the ancient Greeks had risen to prominence. He thought of the gold scroll with Merlin's story, and the odd vision of the tall man in the gray cloak. Stonehenge, he decided, was a place where myth and fact merged, and the truth was maybe as strange as any of it.
They passed through one of the trilithons and Indy stopped as he spotted his Webley lying at the base of it. He picked it up, then looked at the massive block of stone and ran his hands over it. "What are you doing?" Shannon asked.
"Just taking a look. I really haven't had the chance since we got here."
"A stone's a stone, Indy, no matter how big it is," Shannon said.
"And all jazz sounds alike."
Shannon rubbed his neck, grinned. "All right. I get it. Every stone has a different story to tell."
"Come on you two. Let's go," Deirdre said. The carriage was waiting for them. Randy had taken his father back to the village at dawn and then had returned for them. He knew Deirdre was anxious to leave.
Indy started to turn away, but then he saw something. A few feet above his head on the block of stone was a carving. It was a dagger about a foot long and pointing downward. Its hilt looked identical to carvings of Aegean daggers he'd studied that dated back to the second century B.C.
"Now what are you doing?" Deirdre asked.
He pointed to the dagger. "Do you see it?"
Deirdre stepped closer to the stone. "It looks like an arrow."
He shrugged. "I suppose you could call it that. Maybe it's Apollo's Arrow."
"What's that?" Shannon asked.
"Apollo gave an arrow to the magician Abaris who traveled over the earth on it."
"Why would he have stopped here?" Shannon asked. Indy turned away, and gazed across the vast, desolate plain. He thought about the tales of Apollo and Merlin and wondered. "Who knows? Maybe Apollo sent him here to pick up something he'd buried a long time ago."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob MacGregor is the author of two other Indiana Jones novels, The Last Crusade and Peril at Delphi. He is also the author of a mystery, Crystal Skull. A world traveler with an avid interest in archaeology, he has visited numerous ruins. Most recently, he studied ancient cliff paintings in a remote region of the Amazon.
DANCE OF DEATH!
Young Indiana Jones has landed his first teaching post, in the archaeology department at London University. His brightest—and prettiest—student is a twenty-year-old Scottish girl, Deirdre Campbell, who claims she's uncovered a golden scroll, proof of the true existence of Merlin, sorcerer of myth and legend Indy's intrigued by the thesis...a
nd by Deirdre. So, too, is Parliament member Adrian Powell. He's seeking to resurrect the ancient order of the Druids, whose secrets of power could pave his way to world conquest. But first he needs the scroll and he's willing to kill to get it.
Where there's magic, mystery, and murder, Indiana Jones goes to the head of the class. Dropping his books and picking up his bullwhip, Indy joins Deirdre on an action-packed chase across Britain, from the peril-filled caves of Scotland to the savage dance of the giants at Stonehenge—where Merlin's secret will finally be revealed. But not before Indy gets a lesson in love from Deirdre—and a lesson in hate from a man who means to rule mankind.
Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants Page 21