Temple

by Matthew Reilly

The Spaniards.

  Hernando.

  They were trying to get in.

  The old priestess said something to Renco in Quechuan. Renco replied quickly and then he gestured toward me.

  Boom! Boom!

  The old priestess then turned hurriedly to a stone pedestal behind her. I saw on the pedestal an object covered with a purple silk-like cloth.

  The priestess picked up the object—cloth and all—and despite the insistent pounding on the walls, handed it solemnly to Renco. I still could not see what lay beneath the cloth. Whatever it was, it was about the size and shape of a human head.

  Renco took the object respectfully.

  Boom! Boom!

  Why was he moving so slowly? I wondered incredulously, as my eyes darted to the shuddering stone walls around us.

  Once the object was safely in his hands, Renco slowly removed its cloth.

  And I saw it.

  And for a moment, I could do nothing but stare.

  It was the most beautiful, and yet at the same time the most fearsome-looking idol I had ever seen.

  It was completely black, carved out of a square block of a very unusual type of stone. It was rough and sharp at the edges, the workmanship crude, uneven. Out of the middle of the block had been carved the visage of a fierce mountain cat with its jaws bared wide. It looked as if the cat—deranged with rage and fury—had managed to push its head out of the very stone itself.

  Imperfections within the rock—thin rivulets of the most lustrous shade of purple—ran vertically down the cat’s face, making the image appear even more fearsome, if indeed such a thing were possible.

  Renco covered the idol once again. As he did so, the old priestess stepped forward and placed something around his neck. It was a thin leather cord with a dazzling green gemstone attached to it—a magnificent shining emerald that was easily the size of a man’s ear. Renco accepted the gift with a solemn bow and then turned quickly to face me.

  “We must go now,” said he.

  Then, with the idol under his arm, he made for the hole in the floor. I hurried after him. The four burly warriors all took hold of the great stone slab that would cover our exit. The old priestess did not move.

  Renco climbed down into the sewer. I lowered myself after him. As I did so, however, I noticed something quite peculiar.

  The vault was silent.

  The pounding outside had stopped.

  And as I pondered this curiosity some more, I realized with some dread that the pounding had in fact ceased some goodly time before.

  It was then that the entrance to the vault exploded inward.

  A great flash of white flared out around the edges of the huge stone doorway, and an instant later, the whole six-foot doorstone just blasted out into a thousand fragments, showering the vault room with fist-sized rocks.

  I couldn’t explain it. A battering ram could not possibly have fragmented so large a stone so instantaneously . . .

  And then the smoke and dust in the doorway cleared and I saw the great black barrel of a cannon in the space where the doorstone had been.

  My mind reeled.

  They had blown open the vault door with a cannon!

  “Come on!” Renco called from the sewer beneath me.

  I immediately started lowering myself into the hole, just as the first Spanish soldiers came charging in through the dust cloud, firing their muskets in every direction.

  And as I disappeared through the hole in the floor, the last thing I saw was the Captain, Hernando Pizarro, striding into the vault room with a pistol in his hand. His eyes were wild, and his head turned this way and that as he searched the vault for the idol that he so longed for.

  And then, in a single horrifying instant, I saw Hernando look down in my direction and stare directly into my eyes.

  I sloshed madly through the dark sewer tunnels, trying with all my might to keep up with Renco. As I did so, I heard shouts in Spanish echoing off the hard stone walls of the tunnels, saw long ominous shadows stretching out around the corners behind us.

  Ahead of me, Renco just plunged onward through the filthy water with the Incan idol under his arm.

  We hastened through the tunnels, waist-deep in the water, ducking left, bending right, weaving our way through the dark stone labyrinth back toward the river entrance and freedom.

  After a while, however, I began to notice that we were racing in the wrong direction.

  Renco was not heading back toward the river entrance.

  “Where are we going?!” I called forward.

  “Just move!” he called back.

  I turned a corner just as a torch on the wall above my head was blasted from its mount by a musket shot. I turned and saw a team of six conquistadors wading through the tunnel behind me, the flaming torchlight of the passageway glinting off their helmets.

  “They’re right behind us!” I called.

  “Then run faster!”

  More musket shots rang out, loud as thunderclaps, deafening my ears. Their projectiles exploded against the damp stone walls around us.

  Just then, ahead of me, I saw Renco leap up onto a ledge and push up with his shoulder against a stone slab in the ceiling—a slab which I saw bore in its corner the same mysterious symbol that I had seen before, the circle with the double “V” inside it. I leapt up onto the ledge after him and helped him heave the stone upward, revealing the starry night sky.

  Renco climbed out first and I followed immediately behind him. We were standing in a narrow cobblestoned street of some sort. Impenetrable gray walls lined both sides of the alleyway.

  I hurriedly began to replace the stone slab when all of a sudden, a musket shot from within the tunnel pinged against the edge of the hole, narrowly missing my fingers.

  “Never mind. Come on, this way,” said Renco, pulling me down the tiny street.

  The walls on either side of me became indistinguishable blurs of gray as we all but flew through the crooked alley-ways of Cuzco with Hernando’s soldiers ever close behind us.

  As we evaded our pursuers, every now and then we would see brigades of Spanish troops running through the streets, racing for the ramparts.

  We also—I am ashamed to say—saw stakes not unlike those outside the city walls. They were set up in every one of the city’s plazas, row after row of stakes, upon which were impaled the horribly mutilated bodies of captured Incan warriors. These warriors had had their hands, heads and genitals hacked off.

  In one such plaza, Renco saw an Incan longbow hanging from one of the desecrated corpses. He seized it and the quiver full of arrows on the ground beside it and then ducked back into the maze of alleyways. I just followed close behind him, not daring to let him out of my sight.

  At length, however, Renco turned abruptly and entered a building of some sort. It was a squat stone structure, remarkably solid. In fact, so solid it almost looked fortified.

  We passed through several outer rooms before we descended a flight of stone steps and came to a very large subterranean hall.

  The hall was divided into two levels—one wide lower level and an upper landing that was little more than a balcony that ran around the circumference of the hall.

  But it was the lower story that held my attention.

  There were nearly one hundred holes in the dirt floor of this hall—pits over which a network of thin stone bridges passed. With a surge of dread, I realized where we were.

  We were in an Incan dungeon.

  I was reminded of the fact that these Incans had not yet discovered metallurgy, hence they had no bars to create cages. A pit, I saw, was their answer to this dilemma.

  I looked up at the balcony that overlooked the lower floor. It was a guard-walk, for the prison guards to patrol while they looked down on the prisoners.

  Renco didn’t miss a step. He just marched out onto one of the narrow stone bridges and peered down into the holes beneath it. Wails and shouts erupted from below, from the wretched, starving prisoners who had been left in th
eir pits when the siege had begun a week earlier.

  Renco stopped above one of the pits. I followed him out onto the stone bridge and looked down into the dirty hole and, truly, this is what I saw:

  The pit itself must have been at least five paces deep, with sheer earthen walls. Escape was impossible. At the bottom of the dirty well sat a man of average size, but filthy and putrid. Although he was thin, this man did not seem distressed, nor was he shouting like the rest of the poor, forlorn creatures in the prison hall. He just sat with his back pressed up against the wall of his pit, looking, if anything, relaxed and at ease. His composure—that wanton coolness of criminals around the world—made my skin crawl. I wondered what Renco could want with such a character.

  “Bassario,” said Renco.

  The criminal smiled. “Why if it isn’t the good prince Renco . . .”

  “I need your help,” said Renco directly.

  The prisoner seemed to find this humorous. “I cannot imagine what the good prince could possibly want with my skills,” the criminal laughed. “What is it, Renco? Now that your kingdom is in ruins are you thinking of embarking upon a life of crime?”

  Renco looked back toward the entrance to the underground chamber, watching for Spaniards. I shared his concern. We had been in this dungeon too long already.

  “I will only ask you this once, Bassario,” said Renco firmly. “If you choose to help me, I will take you out of here. If you do not so choose, then I will leave you to the in this pit.”

  “An interesting choice,” remarked the criminal.

  “Well?”

  The criminal Bassario stood. “Get me out of this hole.”

  Renco immediately went to fetch a wooden ladder resting against the far wall.

  For my part, I was worried about Hernando and his men. They could arrive at any moment and here Renco was bargaining with a convict! I hurried over to the door through which we had entered the prison hall. When I got there I peered around the stone doorframe—

  —and saw the dark demon-like figure of Hernando Pizarro striding down the stairs toward me!

  My blood curdled at the sight—the wild brown eyes, the hooked black mustache, the scraggly black beard that had not been shaved for weeks.

  I whirled back inside the doorway and started running. “Renco!”

  Renco had only just lowered the ladder into Bassario’s pit when he turned and saw the first Spanish soldier come charging into the prison hall behind me.

  Renco’s hands moved quickly and in an instant he had his longbow raised with an arrow drawn back to his ear. He let fly with the missile and it streaked across the room, careering right for my head. I ducked and the arrow smacked into the forehead of the soldier behind me. His feet flew out from under him and he was thrown to the floor in a heavy heap.

  I rushed out onto the network of stone bridges, ran quickly over the foul dungeon pits.

  More conquistadors entered the prison hall behind me, Hernando among them, firing their muskets wildly.

  By this time Bassario had emerged from his pit and now he and Renco were running across the wide section of dirt floor at the far end of the prison hall.

  “Alberto! This way!” Renco called, pointing at the wide stone doorway at that end of the dungeon.

  I saw the opening at the other end of the hall, saw a solid squared-off boulder suspended above it by a pulley-like mechanism. It wasn’t a big boulder—it was roughly the size of a man—and it was exactly the same size and shape as the doorway beneath it. Two taut lengths of rope held it above the doorway, each rope weighed down by stone counterweights, making it easier for the prison guards standing on the elevated guard-walk to raise and lower the boulder into the opening.

  I ran for the door.

  Whence I felt a terrible weight slam against my back and I was thrown forward. I fell heavily onto one of the narrow stone bridges and saw to my surprise that I had been pummeled from behind by a Spanish soldier!

  He knelt astride my body, drew his dagger and was about to run me through when abruptly an arrow struck him in the chest In fact the arrow hit the soldier with such force that it knocked his peaked steel helmet clear off his head and threw him bodily off the bridge and into the pit beneath us!

  I looked down into the pit after him, only to see four bedraggled prisoners converge on him as one. I lost sight of the hapless soldier, but an instant later I heard a scream of the most utter and absolute terror. The starving prisoners in the pit were eating him alive.

  I looked up just in time to see Renco slide to the ground next to me.

  “Come on!” said he, grabbing my arm, pulling me to my feet

  I got up and saw that Bassario had arrived at the far doorway.

  Musket fire rang out all around us, the rounds kicking up bright orange sparks as they bounced off the stone bridge beneath us.

  Just then, a stray round hit one of the ropes that held the squared-off boulder suspended above the stone doorway at the far end of the hall.

  With a sharp twang the rope snapped . . .

  . . . and the boulder began to lower itself into the doorway. Beneath it, Bassario looked up in horror, then back at Renco.

  “No,” Renco breathed as he saw the descending boulder.

  The doorway—forty paces away from us, and the only way out of the dungeon—was being sealed up!

  I evaluated the distance, took in the speed at which the boulder was grinding down into the square stone opening.

  There was no way we could make it.

  The doorway was too far away, the boulder descending too rapidly. In a few moments, we would be sealed inside the dungeon, trapped and at the mercy of my bloodthirsty countrymen who were at that very moment racing out onto the network of stone bridges behind us, firing their muskets.

  Nothing could save us now.

  Renco obviously did not see it that way.

  Despite the roaring body of musketeers behind us, the young prince quickly looked about himself and spied the pointed steel helmet of the Spanish soldier who had fallen into the pit beneath me.

  Renco dived for the helmet, grabbed it, and then turned and threw it side-handed, sliding it across the dusty floor of the dungeon toward the rapidly closing doorway.

  The helmet slid across the dirt floor, spinning laterally as it did so, its silver pointed peak glinting in the firelight.

  The boulder in the doorway kept descending, grinding against the sides of the stone opening.

  Three feet.

  Two feet.

  One foot.

  At which moment the rapidly spinning helmet slid into the threshold of the doorway and wedged itself perfectly in between the descending boulder and the dirt-covered floor, stopping the boulder’s downward movement! Now the thin boulder stood poised a bare foot above the floor, balanced on top of the helmets pointed steel peak.

  I looked at Renco, astonished.

  “How did you do that?” said I.

  “Never mind,” said he. “Go!”

  We ran off the bridge together and dashed across the wide section of dirt floor that led to the partially open doorway—where Bassario stood waiting for us. In a dark corner of my mind, I wondered why Bassario hadn’t just run away while Renco was occupied saving me. Perhaps he thought he stood a better chance of survival staying with Renco. Or maybe there was some other reason . . .

  Frighteningly loud musket fire rang out all around us as Renco dropped down onto his behind and slid feet-first through the narrow gap between the boulder and the floor. My slide was somewhat less graceful. I dived head-first onto the dust-covered floor and wriggled clumsily on my chest through the gap and out into a stone-walled tunnel on the other side.

  I was getting to my feet just as Renco kicked the helmet out from under the boulder and the great square-shaped stone completed its sealing of the doorway with a loud whump.

  I sighed, breathless.

  We were safe. For the moment.

  “Come, we must hurry,” said Renco. “It is
time we fare-welled this wretched city.”

  Back in the alleyways. Running posthaste.

  Renco led the way, with Bassario behind him and me last of all. At one point in our runnings, we came across a stockpile of Spanish weapons. Bassario took a longbow and a quiver full of arrows; Renco, a quiver, a rough leather satchel—into which he placed the idol—and a sword. For my own part, I took a long glistening saber. For indeed, although I may be a humble monk, I hail from a family that has bred some of the finest fencers in all of Europe.

  “This way,” said Renco, charging up a flight of stone steps.

  We hurried up the stairs and came to a series of uneven roofs. Renco hastened out across the rooftops, hurdling low dividing walls, leaping across the small gaps between the different buildings.

  Bassario and I followed until at last Renco fell to the ground, behind a low wall. His chest heaved as he breathed, rising and falling quickly.

  He looked out over the low wall above him. I did the same. What I saw was this:

  I beheld a wide cobblestone plaza filled with perhaps two dozen Spanish troops and as many horses. Some of the horses were freestanding, while others stood harnessed to a variety of wagons and carts.

  On the far side of the plaza, set into the outer wall of the city, stood a large wooden gate. This gate, however, was not indigenous to Cuzco, but was rather an ugly appendage affixed to the city’s stone gateway by my countrymen after the city had been seized.

  Positioned directly in front of the enormous wooden gate was a large flatbed wagon drawn by two horses who faced in toward the city, away from the gate itself. Mounted on the back of this wagon was a sizable cannon pointed in the other direction.

  Nearer to us, at the base of the building on which we now sat, stood about thirty miserable-looking Incan prisoners. A long length of black rope was threaded through the steel manacles that each prisoner wore around his wrists, binding all of them together in a long dejected row.

  “What are we going to do now?” I inquired of Renco anxiously.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “How?”

  “Through there,” said he, indicating the gate on the far side of the plaza.

  “What about the sewer entrance?” said I, thinking it to be the most obvious escape route.