Temple (49 page)

prowling around the bottom of the moat. 'Caimans again.'
'Another defensive mechanism?' Ren6e asked.
'Caimans are the only animals in this area with even a remote
chance of defeating a rapa in a fight,' Krauss said.
'Primitive tribes do not have rifles or trip wires, so they look
for other methods of keeping their feline enemies at bay.'
Beyond the moat—-completely surrounded by it—Race
saw another section of low foliage, beyond which lay a small
collection of thatch huts nestled underneath a stand of tall
trees.
It was a village of some sort.
The short stretch of foliage lay between the village and
the moat, gave the cluster of primitive huts a quaint, almost
mystical look. Some torches burned on high sticks, bathing the
little town in a haunting orange glow. Apart from the burning
torches, however, the village appeared to be completely
deserted.
A twig snapped.
Race spun, and immediately saw the pack of rapas standing on the
muddy pathway about ten yards behind his group. Somehow, they had
managed to get past the urine- soaked skulls and now they were
standing a short distance behind Race and the others—watching,
waiting.
A narrow log-bridge lay flat on the ground on the village
side of the moat. A length of rope was attached to one end of it in
a manner not unlike that which had applied to the rope bridge down
at the rock tower. It stretched out over the moat to Race's side,
where it was tied to a stake in the ground.
Van Lewen and Doogie pulled on the rope, manoeuvred
the log-bridge into position so that it now spanned the moat.
The eight of them then crossed the bridge and entered the
section of low foliage surrounding the village.
Once they were all over the bridge, Van Lewen and Doogie quickly
pulled it back onto the village side of the moat,
so that the rapas could not follow them oven
They all came out from the foliage together, emerging
onto a wide, town square-like clearing. They cast the beams of
their flashlights over the thatch huts and tall trees that
surrounded the bare dirt clearing.
At the northern end of the square stood a bamboo cage,
its four corners comprised of four thick tree trunks. Beyond the
cage—carved out of the muddy wall of the moat—was a large pit about
thirty feet square and fifteen feet deep. A criss-crossing bamboo
gate separated the pit from the moat itself.
In the very centre of the town square, however, stood the
most arresting sight of all.
It was a shrine of some sort, a large wooden altar-like
structure that had been carved out of the trunk of the widest tree
in the village.
It was filled with nooks and small alcoves. Inside the alcoves Race
saw a collection of relics that was nothing short of spectacular—a
golden crown embedded with sapphires, silver and gold statues of
Incan warriors and maidens, var ious stone idols, and one gigantic
ruby that was easily the size of a man's fist.
Even in the semi-darkness, the shrine shone, its treasures
glistening in the moonlight. Dense clusters of leaves hung down
from the trees around it, framing it on either side like curtains
in a theatre.
In the very centre of the wooden shrine—right where its heart would
have been—sat the most elaborate nook of all.
It was covered by a small curtain and was quite obviously the
centrepiece of the whole altar. But whatever occupied it lay hidden
from view.
Nash strode directly over to it. Race knew what he was thinking.
With a sharp yank, Nash pulled the curtain cover ing the nook
aside.
And he saw it. Race saw it too, and gasped.
It was the idol.
The real idol.
The Spirit of the People.
The sight of it took Race's breath away. Strangely, the first thing
that struck him about the idol was what an excellent job Bassario
had done in replicating it—his fake idol had been a perfect
reproduction. But no matter how hard he had tried, Bassario had
been unable to reproduce the aura that surrounded the real
idol.
It was majesty personified.
The ferocity of the rapa's head inspired terror. The glint of the
purple-and-black thyrium stone inspired wonder. The whole shining
idol just inspired awe.
Entranced, Nash reached out to pick it up—at exactly the same
moment as a sharpened stone arrowhead appeared next to his
head.
The arrow was held by a very angry-looking native who
had stepped out from the curtain-like foliage to the right of the
shrine. He held the arrow poised in his longbow, its drawstring
stretched taut back to his ear.
Van Lewen made to raise his G-11, just as the forest all around him
came alive and out of it stepped no fewer than fifty natives.
Nearly all of them brandished bows and arrows, all of them aimed
squarely at Race and the others.
Van Lewen still had his gun up. Doogie didn't. He just stood rooted
to the spot a few yards away, frozen.
An uneasy stand-off materialised. Van Lewen—armed with a gun that
could kill twenty men in an instant—facing off against the
fifty-plus natives armed with bows and arrows that were all ready
to be fired.
There are too many of them, Race thought. Even if Van Lewen did
manage to get a few shots off, it wouldn't be enough. The natives
would still kill them all, so over whelming were their
numbers.
'Van Lewen,' Race said. “Don't…'
'Sergeant Van Lewen,' Nash said from over by the altar, where he
stood with an arrow poised next to his head.
'Lower your weapon.”
Van Lewen did so. As soon as he did, the natives immedi ately moved
forward, seized the Americans' high-powered weapons.
An older-looking man with a long grey beard and wrinkled olive skin
stepped forward. He didn't bother carrying a long bow. He appeared
to be the chieftain of this tribe.
Another man walked at the chieftain's side and as soon as he saw
him, Race blinked in disbelief.
This second man wasn't a native at all, but rather was a
stout-looking Latin-American man. He was deeply tanned and dressed
in the manner of the Indians, but even the lib eral doses of
ceremonial paint that he wore on his face and chest couldn't hide
his decidedly urban features.
As the chieftain glared at Nash—standing in front of the shrine
like a thief caught with his hands in the till—he growled something
in his native tongue.
The Latin-American man at his side listened attentively
and then offered some advice in reply.
'Hmph,' the chieftain grunted.
Race stood next to Ren6e, the two of them surrounded by five
arrow-bearing Indians.
Just then one of the Indians stepped forward—curious— and touched
Race on the cheek, as if testing to see if his white skin was
real.
Race pulled his face away, jerking it clear.
As he did so, however, the Indian shrieked in astonish ment,
causing everyone to turn. He hurried over to the chieftain,
shouting, 'Rumaya! Rumaya!'
The chieftain immediately came over to where Race stood, with his
white adviser behind him. The old chieftain stood before Race,
appraising him coldly while at the same time the Indian who had
touched Race's face pointed at his left eye and said, 'Rumaya.
Rumaya.'
Abruptly, the chieftain grabbed Race's chin and turned it hard to
the right.
Race didn't resist.
The chieftain evaluated his face in silence, inspecting the
triangular brown birthmark situated underneath his left eye.
Then the chieftain licked his finger and began rubbing the
birthmark, as if testing to see if it would come off. It
didn't.
'Rumaya…' he breathed.
He turned to his Latin-American adviser and said some thing in
Quechuan. The adviser whispered something in return, keeping his
voice low and respectful, to which the old chieftain shook his head
and pointed emphatically at the square-shaped pit that had been
carved into the wall of the moat.
Then the chieftain turned on his heel and barked an order to his
people.
The Indians quickly herded everyone except Race into the bamboo
cage between the trees.
For his part, Race was shoved toward the muddy pit adjacent to the
moat.
The Latin-American adviser fell into step beside him.
'Hello,' the man said in heavily-accented English, taking Race
completely by surprise.
'Hey there,' Race said. 'You, ah, want to tell me what's going on
here?'
'These people are the direct descendants of a remote Incan tribe.
They observed that you are possessed of the Mark of the Sun—that
birthmark under your left eye. They think you might be the second
coming of their saviour, a man they know
as the Chosen One. But they want to test you first to be
sure.'
'And how exactly are they going to test me?'
'They will put you in the pit and then they will open the gate that
separates it from the moat, allowing one of the caimans to enter
the pit with you. Then they will see who survives the subsequent
confrontation, you or the caiman.
You see, according to their prophecy—'
'I know,' Race said. 'I've read it. According to the prophecy the
Chosen One will bear the Mark of the Sun,
and be able to fight with great lizards and save their
spirit.'
The man looked at Race askance. 'You're an anthropologist?'
'A linguist. I've read the Santiago Manuscript.'
The man frowned. 'You've come here looking for the Spirit of the
People?'
'Not me. Them,' Race said, nodding over at Nash and the
others as they were placed inside the bamboo cage.
'But why? It's worthless in monetary terms—'
'It was carved out of a meteorite,' Race said. 'And now it's been
discovered that that meteorite was made of a very
special kind of stone.'
'Oh,' the man said.
'So who are you?' Race asked.
'Oh, yes, I'm very sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself,'
the man said, straightening. 'My name is Doctor Miguel Moros
Marquez. I am an anthropologist from the Uni versity of Peru and
I've been living with this tribe for the last nine years.'
A minute later, Race was shoved down a thin sloping path that
descended into the mud.
The path was bounded on either side by high earthen walls and it
ended at a small wooden gate that opened onto the pit. As soon as
Race arrived in front of the gate, it slid open—pulled upward by a
pair of Indians standing on the ground above—and he stepped
tentatively out into the pit that adjoined the caiman-infested
moat.
The pit was roughly square in shape and it was big— about thirty
feet by thirty feet.
It was lined on three sides by sheer muddy walls. The entire fourth
wall, however, was comprised of an enormous gate constructed of a
latticework of bamboo 'bars'. Through it, Race could see the dark
waves of the moat outside.
To make matters worse, the floor of the pit was covered in a layer
of black water—water that sloshed freely in through the
criss-crossing bars of the bamboo gate from the moat outside. Its
depth where Race was standing was about knee- deep. Its depth in
other parts of the pit was indeterminate.
Well, this is new, Will. What the hell did you do to get yourself
into this situation ?
Just then, a rectangular section of the enormous bamboo gate—a gate
within the gate -was raised by some Indians standing at the rim of
the pit and immediately a wide open ing was created in the middle
of the larger gate between the pit and the caiman-infested
moat.
Race watched in horror as the gate was lifted higher and
higher, making the opening wider and wider. After a few moments it
reached its zenith and stopped and there fol lowed a long
silence.
The inhabitants of the village now lined the rims of the pit and
peered down into it, waiting for the arrival of one of the
caimans.
Race patted his pockets for any weapons he could use.
He was still wearing his jeans and T-shirt and the kevlar
breastplate that Uli had given to him at the mine, and of course,
his glasses and Yankees baseball cap.
No weapons .except for the grappling hook that hung from his
belt.
Race grabbed it• It had a length of rope attached to it, and at the
moment its four silver claws were retracted, lying flush against
the hook's handle like an umbrella in the closed position.
He looked at it for a moment, thinking. Maybe he could use it to
climb out of here—-
It was then that something very large slid in through the
open gate from the moat.
Race froze•
Even though fully three-quarters of its body must have been under
the surface, it was still absolutely enormous.
Race saw the nostrils and the eyes and the rounded armoured back
protruding above the surface—all moving at
• the same speed as the big animal cruised ominously through the
water. He saw its long plated tail swishing
lazily back and forth behind it, propelling it slowly
forward.
It was a caiman and it was huge.
At least an eighteen-footer.
Once the massive reptile was fully inside the pit, the bamboo gate
behind it was lowered back into its slot and locked into
place.
Now it was just Race and the caiman.
Facing off.
Good God…
Race sidestepped away from the big beast, backing into a corner of
the square-shaped pit, his feet sloshing through the knee-deep
water.
The caiman didn't move a muscle.
In fact, the enormous crocodile-like creature didn't even seem to
be aware of his presence at all.
Race could hear his heart pounding loudly inside his head.
Kathumpkathumpkathump.
The caiman still didn't move.
Race stood frozen in the corner of the pit.
And then suddenly, without warning, the caiman moved.
But it wasn't a quick movement of any kind. It didn't rush forward.
Nor did it lunge or leap at Race. Rather, it just lowered itself,
slowly and ominously, beneath the surface of the muddy water.
Race's eyes went instantly wide.
Holy shit.
The caiman had just submerged itself completely! He couldn't see
it. In fact, in the soft blue moonlight and the flickering orange
light of the Indians' torches, he couldn't
see anything but the small waves on the surface of the water.
More silence.
Wavelets slapped against the earthen walls of the pit.
Race's entire body was tensed, waiting for the caiman to appear. He
gripped the steel grappling hook in his hand like a club.
The water's surface was completely still.
Total silence.
Race could feel the fear building up inside him.