Chapter 20
Disoriented, Jack could not tell which way was up. Caught in the waterfalls eddy he tumbled and rolled, his body pounded against submerged rocks. Out of air he felt panic creeping in like a giant snake squeezing his chest. He forced himself to calm down and relax. He let the current push him out of the churning maelstrom and allowed his natural buoyance to carry his body to the surface. Bursting forth he exhaled with a shout then inhaled deeply sucking in water along with the sweet air.
Coughing and sputtering he rolled onto his back treading water to stay afloat. Stars were flashing in the darkness all around him but he could not tell if this was a natural phenomenon or lack of oxygen to his brain. Soon the bright flashing lights faded however the constant stars remained.
Jack was exhausted. He was barely able to keep his head above water. Floating on his back he contemplated his surroundings. Far above he could see the dim glow of what he first thought were stars but now realized were either glow worms or some kind of luminous algae. In the low light they produced he could just make out the shore line of this subterranean lake off to his right. Mustering his remaining strength he swam in that direction.
Reaching the slick, muddy shore he hauled himself out of the water. He wanted to just lay here and rest, sleep would come so easy. He knew though that he had to keep moving. The Xingu had to know the German expedition was nearby and would be going after them next. He had to find them first and rescue Sophie.
Standing up he could see that he was at the foot of an ancient mooring point where several steps rose from the water’s edge. Beyond these a paved, curbed street stretched off into the absolute darkness.
“It’s a road Jack, it has to lead somewhere.” He told himself out loud, his voice sounding tinny in the water filled cavern. After checking to make sure he still had his knife he set off into the darkness.
As he stumbled along cautiously he pondered the things he had seen in the cave with the little Fisherman. Could the airplane have been a statue or idol? The body on the altar was certainly real enough. Jack was familiar with recent stories of artifacts and statues found in Guatemala that some believed pointed to the existence of an advanced South American culture three to five thousand years old and that some crackpot’s believed had been extraterrestrials living on earth.
Jack did not buy in to such things however, he had to admit that what he had seen in that cave was beyond his explanation. Here he was now walking under a mountain, down a paved road as smooth and perfect as any in Paris. Could the ancient stories of a lost city of gold be true?
This part of the Amazon was uncharted, unexplored country, so remote that it could not even be accessed by air. It had always been plausible that an undiscovered city could exist here, the Xingu city was proof now of that. Could a similar city of gold lay hidden under the forest canopy? Jack stopped in his tracks.
Under…? Could it be possible?
Jack lowered himself to one knee and felt the cool, damp, polished stones under his feet. The great obelisk at the mouth of the cave, the gilded airplane, the ancient pilot on the altar, and now this street, the Xingu did not appear to have the technology to create these things. The aqueduct’s and water lifting devices he had seen in the Xingu city were crude compared to the mechanization and scientific knowledge exhibited here and in the cave.
Were the Xingu influenced by a higher power or perhaps taught by a race of superior intellect, a superior race that lived, not in a golden city in the jungle, but a hidden subterranean city under a mountain of gold?
Jack continued forward, his mind racing and his body exhilarated by these possibilities. He moved at a good pace for another twenty minutes until he perceived a dim light off in the distance. Quickening his pace he soon came to a wide archway carved out of the stone wall. The paved road passed through it then abruptly turned to the left and out of sight.
Passing through the arch Jack discovered that he was standing high above a natural chamber so vast that he could not see the opposite side. What he could see caused his heart to race and his breath to come in gasps.
Five hundred feet below where he now stood, streets, houses, buildings and small pyramids stretched out for miles in every direction, languishing in the damp, misty domain. The great city appeared to be uninhabited and, left unrestrained, the wild jungle was repossessing this great subterranean metropolis leaving it dingy and soiled.
Even so, in its dull, untidy condition the city was spectacular. The unmistakable yellow green hue of hammered gold graced every edifice. The streets were made of polished black granite and lined down each side with thin gold pillars topped with white glass orbs, many of which lay shattered on the stone floor.
Black streets laid out in a perfect grid pattern crisscrossed the entire city and at each intersection was a roundabout, in the center of which were small pyramids fashioned from solid gold blocks. All the streets emptied into one of four broad boulevards that then ended in a grand plaza at the cities center.
Here four tall buildings, six stories high, each built from black stone with wide gold sheets stretching from bottom to top at each corner, marked the avenues end. These black and gold structures ringed a giant pyramid which lay in the center of the plaza.
The pyramid at the city center was immense. Constructed of megalithic, black granite stones, its base stretched for at least two thousand feet and it stood fifteen hundred feet high. Each tier was about five feet high with a band of gold following the top edge of each tier. On the two sides that Jack could see, steep flights of stairs ascended to the very top where the monolith was capped by a magnificent, colossal, gold triangular block.
Directly above the pyramid, suspended from the caverns roof, was an immense sphere. It was made of orange, opaque glass and hung from three fitted gold metallic gussets. It was at least one hundred feet in diameter.
A wide slow moving river wound its way through the city. Jack followed its course with his eyes noting several small damns that created manmade lakes bordered by areas of thick vegetation that may have once been parks.
The river entered the city far off to Jack’s left. Tracing it back he discovered its source was a wide, cascading waterfall exiting the cliff face three hundred feet above the cavern floor.
Above the city three fissures perforated the cave ceiling allowing natural light to enter the great chamber. Two of these were far off in the distance and one smaller one above the fall. Jack could see entire constellations through the smallest opening, an unfamiliar sight when one has spent so much time under the dense jungle canopy.
A wide road had been constructed along that side of the cavern descending from some unseen entrance above. The road switched back three times before reaching the waterfall where a bridge spanned the torrential flow just as it tumbled over the precipice.
Jack was peering down at this bridge from above when he noticed antlike figures moving across its surface. Jack had been mesmerized by the fantastic vision laid out before him. Seeing the Germans hauled him out of his dreamlike state and back to the reality, and the danger, of the moment.
Crouching out of sight he observed no more than fifteen people crossing the bridge and he could clearly see that one of them was a woman. Thank God she was still alive.
Wasting no more time Jack hurried along the street descending toward the city. He did not have a plan as to how he would rescue Sophie or how he would kill Schmidt however he was confident in one thing.
“They should have brought more men!”
Chasing El Dorado Page 20