"It seems like I sleep all the time here," Indy said as he finished eating.
"Only while you're adjusting to the change." Salandra frowned. "Indy, he's been gone a long time."
"I wouldn't worry about him, yet." It did seem as if Vicard had been away quite a while, but Indy no longer trusted his sense of time.
"No, he should be back by now." She took several steps in the direction that Vicard had gone. "Father! Father!" She called out again and again, but there was no answer. "We should've gone with him. He has a poor sense of direction."
"I'll go look for him."
"Not without me, you won't."
"All right." Indy stuffed his jacket into the pack and slung it over his shoulder.
"Let me carry it," she said.
"What, you don't trust me with the food?"
"It's not that. You may need your hands free."
He shrugged and handed it to her. "Let me know if it gets too heavy."
They headed off in the direction Vicard had gone. There was probably no reason for concern. But then again, why hadn't Vicard answered her calls? Indy shouted his name. His voice sounded hollow and eerie. He thought he heard a rumble in the distance, and was about to ask Salandra if she'd heard it, when he spotted the first body. It was one of the guards; his neck was broken.
"Oh, no!" Salandra gasped. "Father!"
"Shh! Don't say a word," Indy hissed. They moved on and found another guard. His heart had been ripped out. A short distance away Indy came upon the last guard. His body was badly mauled; it looked as if something had been eating him.
Salandra was holding her hands to her face, weeping softly. Indy led her away from the bodies, and at the same time looked around for Vicard's remains.
He spun around as he heard a grunting noise. He peered through the tall, barren trees, expecting to see the beast that had killed the men. Instead, he spotted Vicard standing near a cluster of dead trees. The king raised a hand and motioned Indy and Salandra away, but it was too late.
"Father!" Salandra sprinted toward him. "I was so worried about you." A huge man dressed in leather armor and covered with blood stepped out from behind the trees. A mane of wild, black hair fell over his shoulders, and one of his eyes bulged from his head. He took three swift steps, caught Salandra by the arm, and lifted her in the air. A scar sliced his face from his bad eye to his jaw, and his nose looked as if someone or something had chewed on it.
Indy hurled his whip at the giant. It wrapped around his neck, but the brute immediately snatched it and jerked Indy toward him. He dropped Salandra, grabbed the archaeologist by the back of his neck, and tossed him a dozen feet through the air.
The bloodthirsty brute was coming for Indy, his huge clawlike hands raised above his head. Indy backed away as fast as he could, but ran up against a tree. The giant was about to pounce on him, when he looked around. He bellowed angrily and turned in a circle.
At first, Indy didn't know what had distracted the giant. He started to crawl away, and realized that Salandra and Vicard were gone. A moment ago they'd been huddled in each other's arms a few feet away; now they'd vanished. Indy crawled a few more yards and his hand fell on his whip. He leaped to his feet and sprinted away, the whip trailing behind.
The giant bellowed savagely and rushed after him. Indy heard another rumble, but paid it no heed. He dodged between trees, sloshed through muck, tore through the bramble and vines. He tripped, glanced back, and saw the giant gaining on him. He scrambled to his feet, charged away, and waded right into a bog.
Muck rose to his knees, his thighs. He was stuck and sinking, and the more he struggled the faster he sank. The giant, more familiar with the surroundings, watched at the edge of the bog as the swamp swallowed Indy inch by inch.
It was either death by the swamp or death at the hands of the giant, Indy thought. He didn't want to get torn apart by the fiend, but he couldn't just let himself sink, either. The muck was sucking at his chest. He coiled his muddy whip, and hurled it with all of his might at the giant. It struck his leather vest, but dropped harmlessly at his feet.
Swell. Just swell. Indy hurriedly reeled in the whip, and made one last desperate attempt to snare the giant's legs as the bog rose under his armpits.
The brute reached out and grabbed the whip, but simply held it with both hands. Indy pulled; the giant pulled back, then dropped the whip. That was it. Indy was through. The muck was up to his chin, and the beastly giant was grinning like a maniac, apparently enjoying his victim's predicament.
Indy flailed his arms, frantically trying to stay above the surface. But his weight was too much. He leaned his head back, gulped his last breath of air, and squeezed his eyes shut as the bog swallowed his head. He clawed at the muck, and his hands broke the surface, but he couldn't get his head out of the water. As soon as he let out his air, it would all be over.
He felt a jerk on the whip, then a second, and a third. The giant wasn't trying to pull him out. He wanted the whip. Indy clung to it; if he died, the whip was going with him. He wrapped it several times around his forearm just as the last of his air escaped and his arms slipped under the surface.
The muck had claimed him as its own. It was almost over. His energy was exhausted; his life waned. He couldn't move. Dead at thirty, he thought. It didn't matter. Oddly, the moment that he'd accepted death, he was no longer frightened. He felt a warm glow around him. He was almost happy.
He vaguely felt another tug on his arm, and then his head popped through the muck. Abruptly, the warmth and happiness vanished, replaced with pain. Indy sputtered, gasping for breath. He hurt all over. His body was one sentient pain. Then he realized the giant was dragging him out of the muck and into his vile grasp.
Indy vainly tried to untangle himself from the whip, but the giant was pulling too hard and too fast. He felt hot breath on his face as a massive hand squeezed his throat, let up, squeezed again. He's playing with me.
A high-pitched shriek rang in Indy's ear. He glanced up just in time to see another dragon swoop down. Its talons burrowed into the giant's hair, and the brute roared as he dropped Indy. His arms windmilled and he howled in pain as a talon slashed his forehead, then dug into his shoulder. The dragon's head darted toward the giant's throat, but caught his forearm instead in its snakelike jaws. Then, with a raucous screech, the dragon released the giant, and flew off.
Indy sucked in air, recovering his breath. He fumbled to untangle the whip, which was wrapped around his forearm and one leg. But he was too slow. The giant, reeling in circles, wiped blood from his eyes as he stumbled over Indy's prone body. Angrily, he slammed his heel into Indy's back, pressing him into the wet earth. He raised his foot, and was about to crush Indy's spine when the earth rumbled. It was much louder than the earlier rumblings. An earthquake, he thought.
Then a roar compounded the din as a two-legged reptilian monster stomped into view. It towered over them, making even the giant seem diminutive. A dinosaur! Indy saw a mouth filled with jagged teeth, each one the size of his hand or larger; heard the snap of its jaw just above the giant's head. The brute loped away, his wounded arm hanging limply at his side. But Indy cracked his whip, snagging the giant's ankle; it spun and charged Indy, intent on tearing him to pieces. But the dinosaur found his dinner first. He swatted the giant, knocked him off his feet, and crushed him in his gigantic jaws.
And I'm dessert, Indy thought, scrambling for the trees. The earth rumbled again. The man-eating monster was on his trail. He rushed ahead, but stopped when he saw the pack that Salandra had carried away from camp.
What the hell was it doing here? But when he spotted the remains of the giant a short distance away, he realized he'd run in a circle. As he snatched up the pack, a feather fluttered to the ground. Rumbling rocked the earth again, and he dashed away. But he didn't get far. There was water in front of him, water to his left, a bog on his right. Trapped! And the ground beneath his feet quaked.
A huge log lay near the water's edge. On second glan
ce Indy realized it was a primitive dugout. He skidded down to the embankment, and found a roughly hewn paddle inside. He didn't know who owned it, but he was going to borrow it. He shoved as hard as he could, trying to free the craft, from the shore. It would literally take a giant to pull it up so far, he thought. Then he knew whose dugout he was taking.
A roar from the beast gave Indy an extra surge of power. The dugout broke free and floated. He hopped inside, and slammed the paddle into the water. But the dinosaur plunged in after him. Two or three more strides and it would be all over. The creature would devour Indy and use the dugout for a toothpick.
A shrill wail erupted just yards behind him. The creature swatted at the water, and a huge wave washed over the side of the dugout. But Indy was picking up speed. He glanced back and saw the dinosaur sinking slowly into the slime. Its legs were stuck, and it could no longer move. It bellowed and bellowed.
"Tough luck, fellow," Indy muttered, as he paddled away as fast as he could go. "Believe me, I know just what it's like."
Indy slid through the swamp, winding past dead trees and over gnarled roots. The rumbles, bellows, and roars were replaced with silence and stillness. If he hadn't been so filthy and exhausted, he might actually have been enjoying himself. He was tempted to flop into the water and wash off the dried mud that was caked over his entire body, but he wasn't about to leave the dugout. Who knew what waited below the surface of these murky waters?
Indy was alone, lost, with no sense of direction. He tried to avoid going in circles, but everything looked the same. More than an hour, maybe two had passed when a bird, a falcon perhaps, flew overhead and screeched at him. He took it, at the very least, as a portent. He had nothing to lose. He turned in the direction the bird had flown.
Sometime later, Indy heard another screech, and saw a Great Horned Owl perched high on a limb of a barren tree, a loner standing in the water. Another favorable portent. Or so he hoped.
He paddled on. The dominant tree now was a banyanlike species with thick trunks that looked like vertical coils of rope. The lower branches spawned hanging roots, which burrowed into the water, forming secondary trunks. The farther Indy paddled in the watery forest, the greener the trees became. The branches of some of them sagged with elongated pods that looked like huge green sausages. As the landscape turned verdant, the atmosphere itself seemed to change. The sky was a pale green, and the foreboding feeling of the swamp vanished. Indy was exhausted, but he felt better than he had since they'd left the tepui.
He reached a channel that was bordered by what looked like mangroves. Green and alive. The water actually appeared to be clear now, and he saw small fish swimming about. He paddled down the channel, taking his time. It was warm, but not hot, and the green thicket eventually gave way to a white, sandy beach.
He jumped from the dugout, and for an instant wondered if he'd made a mistake. But the bottom was sandy and firm. He flopped down in the warm, shallow water, stripped off his muddy garments, bathed, then washed and wrung out his clothes. He laid them out on the beach to dry, and stretched out on the warm sand. In a moment, he was sound asleep.
22
Journey to Wayua
In his dream, Indy saw a band of unicorns charging down a green hill and crossing a lowland. They were majestic creatures with shiny, white pelts that covered muscular limbs. Their heads were noble, and their horns glistened in the pale green light. They slowed, and their leader warily approached a watering spot. There was someone here. Someone sleeping.
Then Indy saw that it was himself.
The unicorn appraised him, as the others slowly approached. The leader lowered his head and pointed its horn at Indy's heart, and pressed. The horn penetrated Indy's skin. It was piercing his heart. Indy tried to tell himself to wake up before he was killed. But then he realized it was just a dream.
To his amazement, he saw Salandra on the beach among the unicorns. Her copper hair shone like metal; and her features seemed softer. Her emerald eyes glowed as if they were the center of her being.
She approached the leader and stroked its mane, and the beast withdrew its hom from Indy's chest. The unicorn raised its head high and led the others to the water's edge, where they drank deeply.
Salandra glided over the sand to where he was watching his dream. She leaned close to him, and whispered in his ear. "You and I are one. One."
"This is a dream," he answered.
She smiled, then turned her back to him. He embraced her from behind. She pressed her back to his chest, and sank into his flesh, his bones. They merged, and they were one.
A dream. Just a dream. But Indy felt a warmth and happiness that oddly reminded him of the moment in the muck when he had nearly died.
But it lasted only a moment. The feeling was replaced by a sense of alarm. He could no longer see. He was spinning. He felt as if he were shrinking. Then he changed; he was a falcon, soaring into the sky. The bird circled the water where the unicorns were still drinking, then it flew off over green hills which soon gave way to a brown, flat, scrub-covered desert.
A dream, Indy told himself again. But the fact that he knew it was a dream gave it a reality of its own. Everything below him seemed to vibrate and glow, as if the land itself were a living thing. The sky was now a pale brown that reflected the barren, sand-colored earth. Time and distance seemed to blur, as it always did in dreams.
The desert turned into a wide, sandy beach bordering a tranquil, pale green ocean. The falcon followed the coastline until an adobe city grew out of the arid land. Its narrow winding streets were crowded with people, many of them Wayua warriors with crossbows slung over their shoulders. The falcon skirted the city, then continued on.
Finally, the bird reached a rocky jut of land on which a massive castle was perched. The bird circled around it. At the center of the casde was an immense courtyard that was filled with colorful flags and a throng of people. The falcon swept low over the assembled crowd, then arced upward and landed on a rampart. The bird's vision was powerful, and it watched the proceedings with a certain human curiosity.
The men wore long tunics that covered their thighs. If they wore any pants, they were short. The women were even more peculiar looking. They were garbed in lightweight, brightly colored, billowy robes, but what was particularly striking was their two-tone faces. The left side, in every case, was painted black.
A procession of men on horseback carrying banners paraded through the center of the courtyard, and they were cheered on by the crowd. There was a medieval flavor to the proceedings, and the bird wouldn't have been surprised to see knights in full armor.
The bird suddenly swept low over the heads of the crowd, but all eyes were on the procession. The falcon landed near a wall, and a swirl of dust rose around it. Indy found himself crouched in an alcove. He stood up, and looked over his body as if seeing it for the first time. Salandra was poised nearby, peering out toward the procession.
"Where are we?"
"Maleiwa's fortress."
"We couldn't really be here," Indy murmured. "This is a dream."
Salandra's hypnotic eyes bored into him. "True enough. But we're here nevertheless."
They stepped out of the alcove, but Indy immediately jumped back as three men with crossbows strode toward him. They were each as large as the giant from the swamp. "Don't worry," Salandra said. "They can't see you."
"They were going to walk right into me."
"No. Right through you. Look, there he is!"
At the end of the procession, a muscular, bald man with strong features and sharp, dark eyes held his head high as he rode by on a white stallion. Indy recognized Maleiwa from the time in the tower in Pincoya. But there; was something noticeably different about him now. He was stronger, more powerful in appearance. A force surrounded him, cloaked him in a shield of invincibility. In his right hand he held a staff and Indy's gaze fell on the crest, a silver, double-headed eagle.
The alicorn.
Indy couldn't take his eyes
off the staff as Maleiwa raised it high above his head. The throng chanted. At first, he couldn't understand. They were speaking in a language he didn't know. But then the words surrounded him, pressed against him, and he was certain he was about to decipher the chant when Salandra whispered in his ear. "The Unicorn's Gate... The Unicorn's Gate. That's what they are saying."
Indy took a step toward Maleiwa as if drawn by the alicorn, but Salandra touched his arm. "Wait. You can do nothing now."
"What's going on? What's he doing?"
"Don't you know? He's on his way with the alicorn to your world."
Indy knew with a certainty that everything that Salandra had said about the Wayua leader was correct. He had to stop him.
He heard a distracting noise, a scratching sound that seemed to emanate from another place.
"I'm glad you finally see things as they are," Salandra said, as if reading his mind.
"Where is the Unicorn's Gate?" Indy asked, ignoring the scratching.
"It's less than a day's walk from where you are sleeping."
"Sleeping... where am I sleeping?" Although he'd been intent on convincing himself that he was dreaming, the thought that he was sleeping astonished him. Everything around him turned blurry, then faded, and the last thing he heard was the scratching noise.
Indy sat up, brushed off the sand, and then grabbed his clothes. They were bone dry, even on the underside. He quickly pulled them on. He must have slept at least a couple of hours.
A scratching sound. It was coming from a nearby patch of mangroves. He walked over and peered through the shrubs and saw the pack. How'd it get over there? He was sure he'd left it in the dugout. He glanced back over his shoulder. The dugout was gone.
More scratching. The pack moved. He heard a snuffling sound as if the thing were alive. He kicked it over. Beans and dried fruit spilled out, and a yellow liquid. A hole had been chewed into Salandra's skin pouch, and the nalca was seeping into the sand. He snatched up the pouch just as the last drops oozed out. He threw it down in disgust. No more nalca. Great. If he wasn't in trouble before, he was now.
Indiana Jones and the Interior World Page 18
