"You were trying to infect me with poison. That staff, that alicorn, is evil."
Mara was baffled. "I don't understand. Just last night, after you spoke, you thought it was wonderful. You said you were unbearably happy. You even whispered that your place in history was going to surpass Charlemagne's and Alexander the Great's."
"Now I know better."
She shook head. "What are you talking about?"
"Your family journal said it all."
So that was it. Indy must have brought the journal with him, and had used it against her. "What happened to my family is in the past. The alicorn has been cleansed and its powers have been renewed. It's not like before."
"You told me about the old sorcerer. He's the devil's man, Mara, and you are his wench."
She leaped up from the bed. "How dare you talk to me like that! And what about you? I know you sent Walcott to steal the staff from me."
"I was right not to trust you. You wanted to sell me evil, not power." Calderone turned his back on her and walked away.
"Diego, that's not true," she called after him, but he'd already slammed the door.
Two guards entered the cell and jerked Indy to his feet. Although a shower, clean clothes, and food had vastly improved his disposition, he resented the rough treatment. He resented the surly attitudes of the guards, resented that it was time for him to play executioner. But he didn't feel much like an executioner. More like a man heading to his own execution.
Calderone was waiting for him. "If you want the staff, you're going to work for it."
"You said you'd give it to me first." Indy spoke through swollen lips; his left eye was so puffed up from the beating he could barely open it. He had more bruises and cuts than he could count. But he couldn't let his injuries get in his way.
"Sorry, Jones. We do it my way."
The guards hustled him down a hall and up a set of stairs. They passed the kitchen and dining room and crossed the spacious foyer. Several guards stood near the base of the wide staircase and stepped aside as Calderone led Indy and the guards toward the stairs. When they reached Mara's room, where another guard was posted, Calderone handed Indy his Webley. "Okay, go do it!" he hissed.
Indy lifted a hand to knock, but then opened the door. Executioners didn't knock. His good eye darted around the room. "Mara?"
No answer. What was going on? Where was she? Then she emerged from the bathroom. Her short blond hair was ruffled and her eyes were red. She looked as if she'd been through the wringer.
"Indy! What... what are you doing here? What happened? Oh, my God, they beat you."
"I escaped and I've got my gun."
She shook her head. "But how...?"
"Don't ask."
He moved to the window. At least a dozen guards milled around a courtyard. He snapped open the cylinder of his Webley. As he expected, it wasn't loaded. Calderone was no fool. Indy was supposed to beat Mara to death with it.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mara reach behind her back and into a drawer in the nightstand. "I don't understand," she said. "You knocked me on the head last night, and now you're risking your life to save me?"
"Who said I'm here to rescue you?"
"Then what are you doing here?"
"Looking for a way out." He tried the door and found that it was locked from the outside. "That figures. Too bad we don't have the staff."
"I know where it is."
Indy spun on his heels. "You do?"
"In the next room."
"Yeah?" Indy peered out the window again. There was no ledge, and the window to the adjacent room was a good dozen feet away.
"Why don't we go through the side door?" Mara suggested.
"What side door?"
She pointed to a chiffonier. "It's behind there."
Indy wedged himself between the tall bureau and the wall and shoved the bureau to one side. He turned the doorknob. Locked.
He took a closer look. "Give me that knife you took out of the drawer," he said with his back to her. "I can pry it open."
"Do you trust me now?" she asked, handing him the knife.
"Not a bit, Mara. It just happens that I trust your buddy, Diego, even less."
She didn't reply, so he went on. "He wants me to kill you, then he's going to let me go, and give me the staff, too." He chipped at the doorframe near the lock, and bits of wood dropped to the floor.
"Diego wants you to kill me? I don't believe it."
"I believe that much," he said as he continued working on the frame. "It's the rest of it that I find hard to swallow." He jerked on the doorknob. The wood splintered near the lock. He jerked again; the door popped open. "Here we go."
He walked into the room. It was similar to Mara's, with a bed, a desk, and a dresser and other bedroom furniture. "Okay, I give up. Where is it?"
Mara walked over to a chest at the foot of the bed: She opened it, and there was the long, teakwood case. It seemed too good to be true. Indy unlatched it. The ivory staff lay inside. He lifted it carefully from the case and ran his hands over the spiraled shaft. He held it up to his good eye. Why would Calderone leave it in a place Mara knew about? If he didn't trust her, he would've hidden it somewhere else. But then Indy realized that Calderone probably hadn't wanted to even touch the staff after he had read the journal. He wanted to get rid of it.
He carried the staff over to the door leading to the hall. It was locked, but from the inside. "Let's go."
She touched his back. "Do you really want me to go with you?"
"In spite of your faults, I can't kill you any more than you could kill me."
"I'm glad," she said. "Just a minute." She hurried into the other room and returned with a suitcase. "It's the money. We'll split it later, okay?"
"Sure." He reached for the door.
"Do you really think the staff is going to protect us?" she asked.
Indy held up the shiny, double-eagle head. In spite of everything he knew about it, he didn't think the artifact possessed mysterious powers. The only way it could protect him was if he used it as a weapon. In a sense, that was exacdy what he was planning to do. If Calderone feared the staff, maybe the word had gotten around. "We've got nothing to lose."
He heard voices coming from the foyer. There were two guards in the hallway outside of Mara's room, but both were looking down the stairs. One of them turned just as Indy struck him on the head with his Webley. He aimed his revolver at the head of the other guard and the man held up his hands. He shook his head and whispered, "Please. Don't shoot."
Indy pulled the trigger. "Bang!"
The man collapsed as if he'd been shot. Indy exchanged a puzzled glance with Mara. "That part was easy."
As they approached the top of the stairs, Indy could hardly believe what he saw in the center of the foyer. Marcus Brody was arguing with Calderone, and they were surrounded by a cluster of guards.
"I told you, Mr. Brody, there is no Professor Schultz here. I don't know anything about him."
"But he came here last night to examine a staff. I was supposed to take him to the airport this morning."
"The man who came here was not Professor Schultz. He was a fraud. Are you interested in the real Schultz, or the fraud?"
"I'm okay, Marcus."
Everyone looked up as Indy descended the staircase, tapping the staff on each step as he went.
"Indy, I mean Professor... I mean... You look horrible. What did they do to you?"
"What is this?" Calderone barked. "What do you think you're doing?" The guards suddenly tensed, and raised their weapons.
Indy kept walking. He held up the staff in front of him; the silver double eagle looked ready to fly. He hoped that the word had gotten around about the evil stick. Several guards moved forward, and Indy's confidence waivered. No one was buying the power of the staff. He raised the staff high over his head, but this time it was simply to defend himself. He was about to take a desperate swing when Mara stepped forward.
"You cow
ard," she screeched at Calderone. "Kill and run. That's all you can do. You will never defeat Il Duce. You're even afraid of a unicorn's horn."
"I've heard enough from you," he said coldly. "Kill her," he ordered. The guards had frozen; no one followed the order. "You bastards," he shouted, and he grabbed a revolver from a guard. Mara charged him and they struggled for the weapon. It fired. They staggered face to face in a deadly embrace, then Calderone let go. Mara collapsed. Indy caught her, but she was already gone, shot in the heart. He looked up and into the barrel of Calderone's gun. The moment froze in the anticipation of death.
A voice boomed from the door. "Diego! You've got to leave. Immediately!" Indy recognized the aide he'd cajoled at the symposium. "The premier has ordered you arrested. His men are on their way. I have a car ready."
Calderone hesitated. He looked up at the staff, which Indy clutched in his hand. His expression shifted from confusion to fear and revulsion. He dropped the gun and sprinted to the door. Suddenly, the black-clad guards were rushing about and the foyer was a scene of chaos.
"Do you have a car here, Marcus?"
Brody was pale, but managed to speak. "Not to worry. I've got a taxi waiting outside the gate."
"Good. Let's get out of here."
Calderone's Pierce-Arrow was already pulling away when Indy and Brody stepped outside. They hurried to the gate, and climbed inside the taxicab. As they pulled away, Brody let out a sigh. "Now that was close. I was sure Calderone was going to... Look at all the soldiers on the street. Oh, no! Look out!"
The Pierce-Arrow had spun around and was heading right at them amid a barage of gunfire. The taxi driver veered the car to the left and down a side street. Indy looked back just as the Pierce-Arrow slammed into another car and exploded into flames.
"I guess Calderone's not going to make it out of town after all."
Brody was slumped in the seat, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, a man on the verge of heart failure. "I can't believe we're still alive. I say we head directly to the airport."
"I'll second that." Not only were they alive, but they had the staff. Indy was about to say as much when he noticed a suitcase on the floorboards. "Marcus, what's that?"
"I thought it was yours. I just grabbed it as we left. What is it?"
"Oh, that. I believe it's a posthumous donation to the museum... from Mara and Calderone."
Epilogue
Hovenweep—September 21
The dawn before the autumnal equinox was cool and clear, and the first beams of sunlight illuminated the high ridges of the canyon as Indy waited patiently in front of the rock. He figured it would be only a few minutes before the sunlight worked its way down the canyon and onto the face of the massive rock where he'd found the unicorn's horn. He heard footsteps behind him and Aguila sat down next to him. "Not much longer."
Indy nodded. Aguila had been elusive when Indy was here three months ago, but upon his return he'd found the wiry old Navajo at his hogan. Aguila said he'd been waiting for Indy. "Tell me what you believe about this place."
Aguila was quiet a moment. "This is a point where the earth aligns with the cosmos, where you can pass through the curtain separating this world and the underworld."
"But I thought the route to the underworld was through sipapus in the kivas."
Aguila laughed. "You take that hole in the ground too seriously."
"You mean I take it too literally?"
"You would never fit through any sipapu I've seen."
Now Indy laughed. "I suppose not. Is this the only place where the underworld can be entered?"
"There are many such places if you know where to look, and how to look."
"So it's okay to close this entrance?"
"It is your choice. But after the deaths here, it is best."
The staff lay at Indy's feet. It was wrapped in white cloth like a burial shroud and encased in a copper box, which Brody had given him. "The world is not ready to believe in unicorns again, Aguila. That's what it comes down to."
Indy had thought long and hard about what to do with the staff before he had set out again for the Southwest. He had offered it to Brody to display in his museum, but the curator's hesitation to accept the relic had said it all. To possess what some believed was the last unicorn's horn was more of a burden than an honor.
"You've made the right decision. If it remained, the one who already has claimed our symbol for the four winds might capture it and misuse its power."
There was only one person who Aguila could be talking about. Hitler had turned the ancient swastika into an emblem of hate. Somehow, Aguila's comment didn't surprise him. While Indy doubted that the staff was made from a unicorn's horn or that it possessed any special power, he was well aware of the power of belief. That power could attract the likes of Hitler.
Aguila gracefully rose to his feet. "It is time."
Indy carried the box over to the crevice. The holes in the floor of the cavity were still there, a reminder of Walcott's futile attempt to locate the staff on the eve of the solstice. He stopped in front of the three circular petroglyphs, and as he stared, the light beaming through the hole in the wall behind him coalesced into the shape of two daggers. Slowly, they moved across the circles toward each other.
Indy leaned the box carefully against the wall. The top of it just touched the lowest point of the central circle. He recalled his last experience here as the two light daggers had touched. The world, it seemed, had literally exploded in a swirling rainbow of color and sound. Chimes rang in a complex harmony that was unbearably beautiful and had seemed an intricate part of the light itself. He'd been drawn inward as if the underworld were a temptress and its allure overpowering.
The two beams inched closer together. It would be just a matter of seconds now before they touched. Was Indy really standing at an entry point to the fabled underworld? And if he actually entered it, what would he see this time? He had a brief image of himself being swept into the swirling void like a ship caught in a giant whirlpool, pulled down into the fathomless underworld, deeper and deeper, never to return.
"Indy, come quickly," Aguila said. "We have to do it now. We can't wait."
Indy took one more look. The light daggers were separated by a fraction of an inch. He turned away, and as he did, he thought the light had grown brighter and that he'd heard the first note of a chimeral chime. No, it was merely his imagination, he told himself. Nevertheless, he didn't look back.
As he stepped outside of the crevice, Aguila leaned down and struck a match on a rock, then touched the short fuse on a stick of dynamite near the entrance of the crevice. "Run!"
They both dashed away, and had gone barely a dozen yards when a blast hurled rocks through the air and knocked Indy from his feet. He buried his face in the dirt and covered his head. The smell of gunpowder and dust wafted over him as an eerie silence followed the explosion.
"You okay?" he asked as he stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes. But Aguila was already walking toward the rock. Indy joined him and inspected the damage.
He peered up at the front of the rock face and saw that the opening through which the sunlight had beamed would never shine again onto the three circular petroglyphs at the solstice or equinox. He walked to the side and saw that the crevice had vanished. The outer rock had shifted, sliding forward so that even a rabbit would have a difficult time finding a way inside. The door to the underworld had been sealed, with the last unicorn's horn inside it.
Forever. Or so he hoped.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob MacGregor wrote Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, a novel based on the movie script. He is also the author of The Crystal Skull, a novel of adventure and intrigue, and The Rainbow Oracle (with Tony Grosso), a book of color divination. His travel articles have appeared in the Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday and elsewhere. He is also a contributor to OMNI Magazine's "Anti-Matter" section. Besides his work as a writer, he has organized adventure tou
rs to South America for travel writers, and led the first group of U.K. journalists to the Lost City in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta Mountains in Colombia in 1987. He lives in Boynton Beach, Florida, where he is at work on his next novel.
TO STEAL A LEGEND
Lost in the labyrinth of a Paleolithic cavern complex, Indy Jones encounters references to a mythological beast that may have existed twenty thousand years ago—and five years later Dr. Jones confronts the legend again, and the woman who is hoping to find the fabled unicorn's horn. But so is someone else from Indy's past, a man who will stop at nothing to obtain.the ancient relic.
Some say the unicorn's horn came from an animal made extinct by the Great Flood. Others say the horn is an effective antidote to poison and a mystical relic. Indy discovers that the horn's power is less than benevolent, and the same could be said about the intentions of a certain beautiful art historian.
Indiana Jones and the Unicorn's Legacy Page 21
