The Broken Sun (18 page)

‘It must be an underground spring,' Mr Spaulding said. ‘Forcing its way through the
rock until it finds a gap.'

‘Looks strange,' Kip agreed.

From here they could see much of the island to the north. The black airship had disappeared.
Jack wasn't sure if he felt relieved or worried.

As to the
Explorer
, there was still no sign.

They continued along the ridge until a distant thud came from the jungle behind them.
It sounded like the felling of a tree. Wordlessly, they all stopped and gazed down
the slope. Another crash reverberated through the undergrowth.

‘What on earth is it?' Phoebe asked.

‘I have no idea,' Charles Spaulding said. ‘I've never seen anything move through
the jungle like that.'

They watched the thick foliage as something—or two somethings—moved through the undergrowth,
shaking the canopy above them. Whatever they were, they were travelling at an incredible
pace.

Finally the rustling mass reached the steep slope of the mountain where the jungle
thinned, and two enormous figures appeared. They looked like knights of
old, but
they were machines in the shape of men, steam firing from a dozen joints. Cogs, gears
and pistons shone in the afternoon light.

‘What are they?' Bradstreet hissed. ‘Some sort of robot?'

Spaulding produced a pair of binoculars. ‘Those aren't machines. Not entirely.'

‘Is it a kind of battle suit?' Mr Doyle asked.

‘I think so. I think I can see faces behind the helmets.' Spaulding lowered his binoculars.
‘Whatever they are, they're coming straight towards us.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The machine men moved with terrifying speed. While it had taken Jack and the others
more than an hour to climb the slope, their pursuers would reach the crater in minutes.

‘To that ravine!' Spaulding shouted.

They scrambled down the crater's edge and raced through the long grass. Jack arrowed
towards the ravine with Scarlet close behind.

‘Jack!' Scarlet yelled. ‘We're going the wrong way!'

He skidded to a halt.
Bazookas
, he thought.
Scarlet's right.
The others were racing
towards a different ravine. He and Scarlet were running in the opposite direction.
It was too late to do anything about it now. Their pursuers
would be over the rise
in seconds.

He looked back to the ravine—and had an awful realisation. ‘It doesn't lead anywhere,'
he said in dismay. ‘It's a dead end.'

The stream, spilling from the peak he had seen earlier, ended in a spectacular waterfall
at the bottom before trickling into a deep pool. Darkness lay behind the waterfall.

Jack grabbed Scarlet's arm. ‘That way!' he said. ‘I think we can take cover.'

Reaching the cascade, Jack looked over his shoulder just as the machine men appeared
at the edge of the crater. He'd never seen anything like them. Their engines were
worn like backpacks. The power fed through copper pipes and tubes to servos built
into their knees, ankles, elbows and wrists. Helmets with slots for their eyes enclosed
their heads. Retractable guns had been built into their forearms. Their hands were
three times normal size.

The machine men had not spotted them. The recess behind the waterfall was small,
but looked like it could accommodate two people.

‘Take my hand,' Jack told Scarlet.

They stepped through the shower. The roar of the water was like an avalanche. Jack
almost slipped on the mossy stones as his eyes searched the gloom. The recess was
larger than he had first thought, and a crack in the rock led to a dry enclosure.

The torrent was not as loud back here. Jack could
still see glimpses of the grassy
plain, but much of it was shielded by the veil of water.

Scarlet tugged at his arm. ‘I think they're coming this way,' she said. ‘Let's go
back further.'

She was right. Two huge shapes, distorted by the water screen, were moving towards
them. They slipped further into the gloom. It was a tight squeeze and Jack found
himself face to face with Scarlet, shoved so hard against her he could feel the beat
of her heart. He felt himself blushing.

Thank God it's dark in here.

Her lips were only inches away. Water dripped from her red hair, down her face, and
nestled in the crook of her chin before sliding down her throat. Her eyes shifted
to his. She looked away. He could smell her breath. What had she eaten for breakfast?
Honey on toast?

Crazy
, he thought
. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.

But her breath was intoxicating. His heart was so loud that he was amazed the machine
men could not hear it.

Thud…thud…thud…

Jack touched her arm and their eyes met again. She touched his shoulder…

…and the wall gave way.

Jack felt himself falling. He threw out an arm, but there was nothing to grab. He
and Scarlet both cried out, crashing a few feet to a rocky floor.

Oof!

It was dark—wherever they were. But the wall hadn't
collapsed. They had, in fact,
leaned against a stone door that had opened onto a small room. Jack caught a final
glimpse of the waterfall beyond before the door swung shut, drowning them in darkness.

They groped at the stone entryway, searching for a handle, but the surface was completely
smooth.

They were trapped.

Complete panic seized Jack.
No-one saw us come in here
, he thought.
Which means they'll
never find us.
Searchers could look for days or weeks or months and never work out
where they'd gone. They might even look behind the waterfall, but not find the secret
door.

He started slapping the stonework, but then a light flickered on, banishing the darkness.
Scarlet held a burning match.

‘We're carrying backpacks,' she reminded him. ‘Packed with supplies. Food and water.
Matches. Candles.'

‘Hmm.' In his panic, he had forgotten. ‘Nice idea, that match.'

‘Thanks.'

He rooted through his pack and produced a candle. Now with the aid of light, they
continued searching for a lever or handle, but with no success.

‘I don't think the others saw us head for the waterfall,' Scarlet said.

‘They didn't.'

‘Which means…'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Cannibalism is on the menu.'

‘Don't be silly.'

‘Who's being silly?'

They examined the enclosure. It was square chamber about four feet across.

‘This is man-made,' Scarlet said. ‘Or woman-made. There was a Brinkie Buckeridge
novel,
The Adventure of the Glass Warrior
, where an entire civilisation, made up
only of women, survived for centuries in an underground cave.'

‘Really? No men.'

‘Not one.'

‘So how did they…er, reproduce?'

‘That's never explained.'

Jack turned his attention to their surroundings. Scarlet was right. No rocky cave
could be this perfectly formed. Fine grooves on the walls indicated where the stone
had been chiselled away.

Jack pressed against the back wall and it gave way, spinning around on a central
pivot. He shone the candle into the gap. Stairs led down into the darkness.

‘I think we should follow them,' he said.

‘What about the others?' Scarlet asked.

‘They may never find us here. We're better off seeing where this leads.'

The steps were smooth and the walls rough. The ceiling was too high for light from
the flickering candle to penetrate. The passageway spiralled downwards, finally ending
in a chamber covered in hieroglyphics.

‘This looks very old,' Scarlet murmured. ‘I think it's Ancient Sumerian.'

‘Really? I thought it may have been Eskimoan. Maybe tenth-century BC.'

‘Don't be silly.'

‘Sorry, it comes so naturally. What makes you think it's Sumerian?'

Scarlet pointed. ‘There's the symbol we saw on the Broken Sun for the number two,'
she said. ‘And a number seven over here.'

They
were
the same symbols. A story was being played out, the images showing a king
and his subjects, surrounded by bushels of grain, chariots, vases and trees. Below
them was a picture of two columns, waves and boats.

‘I think this is the story of Atlantis,' Scarlet said. ‘Describing how the city was
destroyed and the people left by boat.'

‘I'd probably find this more interesting if we weren't involved in a life and death
struggle,' Jack said. His candle was shrinking dangerously. While they still had
plenty of matches, they couldn't stay there forever. ‘Let's try pushing on the wall.
It might open like the others.'

But it didn't. They spent several minutes pushing and shoving from all directions,
but it didn't budge. Panic was still nagging at the back of Jack's mind. He reached
down into his pocket and touched the compass from his parents.

How do we get out of here?
he asked.
There must be a way.

If he was expecting an answer, he didn't get one. His
eyes focused on the lines of
horizontal pictures, though, until he found himself staring high up at an image of
a ship moving across a sea. Ahead of it lay a night sky, a single star near the horizon.
The ship seemed to be heading towards it.

Jack reached up and touched the star. He felt a tingle of static electricity, followed
by the sound of shifting stones. The wall slid sideways and yellow light flooded
into the passage.

Jack and Scarlet stared at what lay beyond.

‘New Atlantis,' Scarlet breathed. ‘We've found it.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

An ancient city filled the vast cavern. Columns and porticos, arches and domes stretched
all the way to the distant walls. The buildings were made from marble, brass and
copper, tarnished green with age. Everything stood at the same height, about fifty
feet, except for a single bronze spire, topped with a glass ball, that soared from
the centre.

The city was designed in a giant grid about five miles wide. Ivory-coloured cobblestones
tiled the streets. Plants choked the avenues, and the trees were unlike anything
Jack had ever seen: they looked like palms except the leaves were pale orange and
the trunks ash-grey.

Yellow light bathed the cavern. The source of
illumination for the whole city came
from mustard-coloured paint on the cave roof. Here and there it had peeled, but it
still lit up the city as if it were midday. Where the cavern walls met the ceiling
were stone heads with black eyes and round mouths.

No breeze moved the branches on the trees. No water flowed in the aqueducts that
ran the length of the metropolis. No people trod the avenues. New Atlantis was completely
deserted.

Jack's eyes strayed to the glass ball at the top of the spire. It was slowly changing
colour, from blue to red and back to blue.

Was it powered by electricity? Had the ancient Atlanteans found a way to harness
that dangerous form of energy?

‘Jack,' Scarlet said. ‘Where are all the people?'

‘I don't know. It looks like no-one's lived here for years. Maybe centuries.'

A stone altar lay below them, and half-a-dozen steps leading into the city.
Blimey
,
Jack thought.
We're in some kind of temple
.

At their backs, a huge mural of blue and white stars had been painted on the wall.
An immense stone statue stood at each side of the temple, the figures clad in a loose
uniform and wearing helmets, shielding their faces.

Jack and Scarlet examined the altar. A dry brown stain, centuries old, painted the
stonework.

‘Is it—' Jack began.

‘Blood.' Scarlet confirmed. ‘And lots of it. It's
horrible, but I think there were
sacrifices made here.'

‘What sort of sacrifices?'

‘
Human
sacrifices,' someone said from behind, making Jack and Scarlet jump. ‘And
many of them.'

The voice came from a small dark man, wearing a cotton smock, standing on a ledge.
‘The Old Ones turned to human sacrifice in the end,' he continued, ‘and it destroyed
them.'

‘You stole the Broken Sun!' Jack cried. ‘You tried to murder Gloria and Professor
Clarke!' He took a step forward, but the stranger pointed a gun, a weapon that looked
out of place in the ancient city.

‘That was my brother, Andana,' he said. ‘And I regret the harm that he caused.'

‘Then who are you?' Scarlet demanded.

‘My name is Etruba,' he said. ‘I am the last of the Atlanteans. My people came here
after our city was destroyed ten thousand years ago. We were welcomed as gods by
the native people who lived on this island. They helped us build New Atlantis. But
we needed more than their help.

‘Our gods demanded sacrifices. First we began with the local people. Then we turned
to our own. Eventually our beliefs drove us to extinction. Soon there remained only
my brother and myself. And now, finally, only me.'

‘So your blood rituals destroyed you,' Scarlet said, giving Jack a quick look that
said,
I'm playing for time.

‘Why are you still protecting this place?' Jack asked.

‘I am awaiting the return of our gods,' Etruba said.
‘That time is drawing near.'

Jack looked up at the mural. ‘Are they some kind of sky god?'

‘Their names are Tsala and Kaleela. They visited us when we were but a simple people,
a savage warrior race like those around us. Then they came from the sky and entrusted
us with powerful secrets of science. When Tsala and Kaleela left, we continued to
develop their sacred technologies, but our ambition outweighed our wisdom. We tried
to open a portal into other dimensions, but only succeeded in destroying Atlantis
in a single day.'